Today you probably received an email from your telco providing tips on reaching Triple Zero – do not ignore it as these instructions may very well save your life.
Australian telco customers around the country have at one point or another experienced an outage with their provider.
The most recent outage affected Telstra customers in July.
While the inconvenience of not being able to connect calls, send messages, or even receive payments is felt by many, even worse still were the customers who were trying to reach Triple Zero in an emergency.
We have seen cases in the past where an outage has cut people off from Triple Zero and lives have been lost.
Now all the telcos in Australia have come together to launch an awareness campaign on how to connect to Triple Zero even during an outage.
Customers from Optus, Telstra, Vodafone, Boost and many other telcos would have received the email today outlining how Triple Zero works, the backups you have in place, and what to do if you’re having trouble connecting.
These emails also explain what happens when you call Triple Zero, what does emergency camp on mean, and what you can do if your Triple Zero doesn’t seem to be connecting.
Here’s what Vodafone sent its customers – Telstra, Optus, Boost Mobile and every other virtual network operator would have sent the same email. Check your inbox.
| What happens when you call 000? When you call 000 from an approved mobile phone, it will first try to connect using your mobile network. If your network isn’t available, your phone will try to connect to another mobile network, if available. This is known as ‘emergency camp-on’. |
| What does ‘emergency camp-on’ mean? If your network is unavailable, your phone looks for another available mobile network and temporarily connects to call 000. You don’t need to change any settings or do anything yourself. It works automatically at no cost to you, even without an active SIM in your phone. |
| What to do if your 000 call doesn’t seem to be connecting? The ‘emergency camp-on’ process can take time to connect to another network. Generally, there will be silence on the line while this happens.
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| All phones are different; if ‘emergency camp-on’ is available, iPhone will show ‘SOS’ or ‘SOS only’ depending on iOS version. Android will show ‘Emergency calls only’, ‘No service – emergency calls only’, or a small SOS icon. If your phone shows ‘No service’, there is no mobile network coverage available where you are and you will not be able to call 000 using a mobile network |
| Look for other ways to get help while you’re holding the line ‘Emergency camp-on’ won’t work if you are outside the coverage range of all mobile networks.
In this situation:
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