Outdated Samsung handset linked to fatal emergency call failure in Australia

If the OS doesn't recognise it as an emergency number then it may fail the call if it believes that whatever network it is associated with won't connect it ("No service" vs "Emergency calls only" indicators etc if you are out of coverage from your SIM's network but within range of other networks).

Emergency calling is supposed to work over any network (even without a SIM card inserted, much less an activated, registered, associated one), but only if the OS tries to dial it as an emergency call.

Emergency calls often aren't just normal phone calls. At least in the US, they're required to transmit their location to the operator, and this is the case in many other countries as well. I doubt the technologies are standardized.

I remember an old Android crashed or something. Maybe it still carried that bug?

For example if your phone only makes emergency calls over 3G and the carrier shuts down 3G, then you will be unable to make emergency calls anymore.

Some handsets do not connect to secondary networks for emergency calls without the update that fixes the problem.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-22/samsung-mobile-device...

This is explained if you click through the link to the Samsung post about this issue.

> Australian mobile operators and Samsung have identified a number of older mobile devices that will not correctly connect to an alternative mobile network to make Triple Zero calls when the customer’s primary mobile network is unavailable. These devices need to be updated or replaced to make sure they work reliably in an emergency.

What happens if I don’t act?

Under the Government’s Emergency Service Call Determination, all mobile network operators are required to block devices from their networks that are not configured to access emergency call services. If your device is on the list of impacted devices, you will have 28 days from when we notify you to update the software or replace your device to stay connected to the Telstra network. After this time, the device will be blocked from accessing all Australian mobile networks.

Can I still use my phone on my home Wi-Fi after it is blocked?

Yes. Your phone can connect to a Wi-Fi network for data purposes only. However, blocked devices won’t be able to make or receive voice calls over Wi-Fi, including emergency calls, or send and receive SMS.

https://www.telstra.com.au/exchange/older-mobile-devices-cal...

Is this puffery or not? I don't know, IANAL, but maybe? I checked and Puffery is legal in Australia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery

Chances are there will be securities fraud case. Where they will refer to statements such as these and the fact that it wasn’t really the case. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt...

It's hard to understand how this is Samsung's liability. The device was extremely old (nearly 10 years), and an update was available nonetheless. The user had received multiple warnings and notifications that this update needs to be applied for emergency calls to continue working.

If it becomes a liability, wouldn't the onus be on the network operators for failing to support devices sold within X years?

I think it would be a worse world then the one we live in today where we allow some leeway for exaggerations.

As it is everyone and everything are overly careful of saying anything that might have legal implications. One outcome of that are new laws that are almost incomprehensible.

The fix is just a software update for that phone, it's not on the replacement list.

My S21 Ultra is the best phone I've ever had. I bought it a couple of months from when it was newly released and it just will not die. I've traveled with it, played all the games, thousands of photos, used it for nearly a year while I was doing gig driving (so plugged in and screen on for hours at a time), dropped countless times, and the screen has no cracks and the battery still lasts more than a day with regular use. For the past few years every new Samsung smartphone has piqued my interest, and the second my S21 dies I will buy whatever Samsung flagship happens to be the latest, but it just will not die.

Something is definitely wrong when devices still under an extended warranty plan are totally useless bricks.

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/extended-service-faqs/

I literally just upgraded from that a month ago, and only because of the degraded battery (which I was fine with but I was going on a trip and didn't want the headache). There's dozens of us, Jerry!

I only just stopped using my HUAWEI P20 Pro - which I bought in 2018 - the phone was still great and handled everything I needed it to - plus the camera was amazing. I just got a new phone as the battery life was getting silly and it began restarting all the time - and I'm not loving it compared to the P20 Pro.

I think a 7 year old phone has no reason to not be suitable to 90% of what people want from a phone (in my case it was 100%). Frustrating to see them abandoned by manufacturers.

These phones couldn’t do the thing in question even when 0 years old, due to a bug, and failure to fix that is the reason for getting blocked from the networks

context: from a landline you could call 911 even without a phone handset, simply by (un)touching the wires with the right timing. And this would even work in a multi-day power outage thanks to the battery banks at the central office.

> I used to live on a border and local EMS was 3-digit only. The only way to call the correct EMS was to call their non-emergency number and get forwarded - but only after getting scolded first for not calling the 3-digit number.

I think there's a lot more code running on SIM cards these days to reduce/prevent that. On my Canadian Rogers phone, when I do a network scan, I don't see the american networks at all, but then when I put in a foreign SIM, they light up. Similarly, it can take a while of driving into the US before it detaches from the Canadian network and finally hands over to the US.

It was actually an issue with my French SIM that was supposed to work in Canada and USA: it REALLY wanted to connect to the US networks, even though I was ~10 stories up in Toronto and very occasionally getting an SMS through once an hour to the US network.

This link actually explains the bug in question, unlike TFA.