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Inactive Go Phone - Can I call 911?

I have an inactive GoPhone which had orginally been purchased to replace a Nokia 6555 that died about one week after going into warranty. I have since replaced the basic Samsung 127 with another phone on a 2 yr contract extension deal.

My question is this: I would like to use the inactive GoPhone as an emergency 911 only phone.To do this should I leave the SIM card in place or simplyremove it completely and also this: is there a way to test it as a 911 only phone without actually calling 911?

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dmapr

ACE - Expert

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6.6K Messages

14 years ago

@dyanez wrote:

I have an inactive GoPhone which had orginally been purchased to replace a Nokia 6555 that died about one week after going into warranty. I have since replaced the basic Samsung 127 with another phone on a 2 yr contract extension deal.

My question is this: I would like to use the inactive GoPhone as an emergency 911 only phone.To do this should I leave the SIM card in place or simplyremove it completely and also this: is there a way to test it as a 911 only phone without actually calling 911?

For 911 it should work with or without the SIM card. A call to 911 placed from an inactive phone will not connect immediately, as the inactive phone is not registered on any network. It'll take several seconds for the phone to get authorized for an emergency call. Some phones will actually display on the screen that they're in “Emergency calling mode”, while with others it's not apparent. So a simple test would be to dial 611 (or any other non-emergency number) and see that the phone doesn't even attempt to dial. You can then dial 911 and cancel before it actually goes through. Or you can try calling 112 (European emergency number) as most GSM phones should have that listed as an emergency number as well.

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