On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:13:50 +0000 (UTC), danny burstein
<dannyb@panix.com> wrote:

>What rationale are the cellcos there using to get
>away with this? I know why they _want_ to, since
>they'd rather make the money...

I would be VERY surprised if they charge for an EMERGENCY call. My
guess is that this would have been done to prevent HOAX calls being
placed by persons wanting to remain anonymous.

This is a problem here in Australia with school children often
removing their SIM cards to call 112 and say there is a bomb in their
school to get out of a class.

What they don't realise is that every time a call is made from a GSM
phone that the IMIE is transmitted to the Network. If the Networks
were smart enough in the UK they could easily make use of IMIE number
when a 112 call is made, provided the IMIE is registered at one of the
Networks in that country. This could easily be automatically updated
every time someone makes a normal call using their GSM phone.

I know here in Australia several people have been prosecuted for even
sending threatening SMS messages traced back to their phone, even
though they had a different SIM in the phone to send those messages!


--
The views I present are that of my own and NOT of any organisation I
may belong to.

73 de Simon, VK3XEM.
<http://web.acma.gov.au/pls/radcom/client_search.client_lookup?pCLIENT_NO=157452>