welcome to Tech throwback in 1996 the
government realized they had a bit of a
problem and that problem was simple
everybody was trying to steal cell phone
service and it was incredibly easy to do
people were cloning cell phones and
using those to rack up lots of air time
with other people's bills or on other
people's bills and that was costing the
cell phone carriers tons of money and
the cell phone carriers didn't want to
let it slide so they went to bat for the
consumer and they did that by
integrating PIN codes that you would
have to dial on your cell phone before
it would dial out you'd have to punch in
a three or four digit code and at that
point you would be able to make a call
on your cell phone and that since the
criminals didn't know your PIN even if
they had cloned your phone it protected
them and it protected the cell phone
carrier but in an emergency you would
have to type in that pin or if you
didn't have service say in a non-service
initialized device you could not call
9-1-1 in an emergency where every sec
second could mean the difference between
life and death you can understand why
entering a pin code or having to stop to
enter a credit card and register a cell
phone to get some service on it probably
isn't the best idea so in 1996 the
government decided it was time to do
something about this so what they did is
they created a rule for non-service
initialized devices or actually all
devices that could connect to a cellular
network they would be able to dial 9-1-1
without any delay without entering a
code or without even needing service so
NSI devices could suddenly connect to
9-1-1 in an emergency and that has
actually saved people's life there are
examples out there where people were
able to dial 9-1-1 from a cell phone
that was close by it doesn't matter the
cell phone could have came out of a
drawer something left behind in a car
you would still be able to dial 9-1-1 if
that cell phone was using current
technology and it was in the vicinity of
a network it could connect to it didn't
matter whether you paid your bill
whether you found it on the side of the
road whether somebody hand to do the
phone you could still call 9-1-1 and it
makes good sense it's widely recommended
by emergency preparedness experts to
keep an old cell phone one that you kept
in the junk drawer one that was in an
old car whatever it was just keep an old
cell phone that's charged or has a
battery that you can charge it with
around your house in case of emergency
you can dial 9-1-1 and the government
wants to put a stop to that now why the
change of heart 1996 the FCC was
implementing rules saying all carriers
had to accept the calls well it's become
a problem it's become a really big
problem actually the problem has gotten
so big that we have devices like this
cell phone that can only call one number
that's right the numbers 9-1-1 it
doesn't have a display it doesn't do
anything else you can't even call it
back 911 can't even call you back it's a
cell phone that's built to call 9-1-1
and do nothing else you'd have to call
9-1-1 back if you got disconnected and
who knows where that call would end up
on the next call so before we jump into
this let's talk a little bit about how
the government's trying to tackle that
problem and what's going on today with
your ability to dial 911 from a new
phone most people do understand that
those very old phones on the analog
frequencies and stuff like that aren't
going to work for the most part they
won't even turn on and most people
aren't looking to use those in an
emergency but the ones in the junk
drawers those are the ones that have
become a problem 911 is getting so many
calls that are having to be filtered out
I'd say the biggest problem is kids
playing with their parents old cell
phones obviously everybody knows that uh
you give your kids your old cell phone
so they can play games on it or
something like that while those kids end
up calling the one number that works
it's 9-1-1 and then 9-1-1 has to decide
what was going on with the call and if
they need to dispatch somebody to do a
wellness check obviously a big problem
for them it's taking time from
emergencies that matter and devoting it
to just nonsense pocket dials kids
playing with phones like I said so it's
become a very big problem and it's such
a big problem that the carriers want to
block some of the problematic members in
2008 the government helped them out with
that the FCC made a new rule requiring
phones like this or phones provided by
carriers to dial 9-1-1 in emergencies to
have a special number and that number is
one two three four five six seven eight
nine zero pretty simple right it's just
all the digits in order and when 9-1-1
sees that pop up they know that they
won't be able to call you back so you
need to stay on the line or you'll have
to call back and hope that you get
directed back to the same Public Safety
Center obviously that makes a lot of
sense you see that number pop up you
know what's going on you know that it's
somebody that doesn't have cell phone
service and you won't be able to call
back but it does not solve the problem
of fraudulent calls of which there are
thousands and thousands and thousands of
per year in fact there are some eight
users across the United States and just
between that handful of users they've
called 9-1-1 more than a thousand times
each in a year that's 8 000 calls from
eight people you can see why this is
still a problem the carriers and and
those 911 centers need a way to block
those numbers so the FCC made a new rule
they amended the rule so now you have a
phone like this or a carrier provided
phone or somebody with no service calls
in the number is now 911 plus their ESN
their electronic serial number if I
remember right or their IMEI seven
digits of that are amended to the number
after 9-1-1 so now they can keep track
of a phone that keeps calling 9-1-1 over
and over very easy to see because
they're ESN or their IMEI is right there
on screen and hopefully they could go
back find out who originally had that
phone registered and maybe maybe if it
wasn't sold at a garage sale or passed
down the line or was a burner phone in
the first place that could be traced
back and they could go figure out who is
making those calls and wasting time that
should be dedicated to actual emergency
responses up until 2013 everybody wanted
to maintain the status quo they wanted
those 911 calls to be free whether you
had service or not and if you could
connect to a cell phone tower you can
call 9-1-1 it's become such a problem
now that the government has changed
their mind in 2015 and the FCC opened up
a new request for comment asking
everybody involved with the NSI
exception to submit their comments on
how much of a problem it's become and if
they should keep the exception open now
I've never found any follow-up to that
request for comment in 2015. it seems
like they opened it up everybody was
okay with removing NSI exemptions but
the FCC didn't make a new rule they just
kind of left it there and said we'll see
if it becomes a worse problem but out of
the NSI exemption came this crazy cell
phone companies had to capitalize on the
opportunity to make a cell phone with
none of the drawbacks of a cell phone
like service so they jumped in and
started making phones that only did one
thing that's right call 9-1-1 so these
don't seem to exist anywhere anymore I
have not found another one for sale
today at this point I guess you'd go buy
a TracFone or some something like that
at Walmart if you needed an emergency
only phone but these they don't seem to
exist anywhere so the government did
kind of make a change when they started
going after the NSI exemption and I
think the businesses making these saw
the writing on the wall and ran but
we're gonna dig into this one today it's
a cool legal exploitation of a loophole
and something you might not have seen
before I know I hadn't so right on the
box we have the 911 plus emergency cell
phone I don't know if the plus is part
of it or not but it seems like it might
be it says ready to use anytime anywhere
you are call 9-1-1 for free yeah the
government made that possible for you
Nationwide coverage with no roaming fees
well yeah you don't need a plan why
would there be roaming fees no monthly
bill yeah we talked about that no root
plants no activation or contract well I
think that was all summed up in the
first bullet point there call 9-1-1 free
You Got It Made in the USA with a flag I
think I was this made in the USA ah look
at that right on the back it says this
product is assembled in the USA you know
consumer electronics aren't built in the
USA for the most part on the back we
have all of the same print from the
front this is a model 1101a
there was probably never a b let's be
honest Duracell inside and why pay more
when all you need is a phone for
emergencies well it was probably pretty
cheap I assume this was 30 to 50 dollars
I never found a record of what it used
to cost but it was probably very cheap
it doesn't even have a display if you
look right there it looks like it should
have a display but it it doesn't it only
has a dial pad and send and end buttons
so let's open this thing up and check
out the emergency only phone kind of
cool it opens right up it's actually not
a sealed blister pack I guess in an
emergency you need to open it pretty
quick so we've got an instruction manual
here let's take a quick look at that
oh it's map Style
fast start it uses three Duracell Double
A's that are included well they're not
included in here I don't know where
they're at talk to uh what is the talk
time
I don't see it
oh talk time and standby times are
approximate
but it doesn't say what they are
interesting well it does have an auto
shutdown feature that turns the handset
off if it's left idle for more than two
minutes that's pretty quick and a low
battery notification feature if it's
left on and Battery strength becomes low
it will emit a beeping tone every 30
seconds press in to turn off the power
and replace the batteries
okay it even has a making emergency 911
calls section here dial 9-1-1 and press
send who would have known and another
one that says making other calls using
enhanced calling you might be able to
use this is a third party network
service and may not be available a
calling card credit card or collect or
prepaid call may be able to be made from
this handset so no guarantees it
probably didn't work at all but there's
a chance you could have called a number
other than 9-1-1 with this phone well
look at that we actually have
specifications for the phone I didn't
think they would be there at all but uh
832 channels it can transmit on
824.04 to
848.97 megahertz it receives on
869.02893.97 megahertz Channel spacing
is 30 kilohertz duplex spacing 45
megahertz frequency stability okay
that's we're getting really deep into
radio specs on this phone most cell
phones don't come with that many
specifications here they do list the
radio power in here which is pretty
unique it is 0.6 watts to 6.3 milliwatts
and it clearly runs on three Double A's
so power supply is 3.3 to 4.5 VDC
and it should work in a whole lot of
conditions negative 22 Fahrenheit all
the way up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit it
weighs 5.3 ounces with batteries or not
a lot without batteries and it even has
a 3.5 millimeter headset Jack of course
the battery life wasn't listed anywhere
in the manual let's see if we can fold
this thing back up it's map Style
so that's usually a bit of a chore ah we
got it all right we'll put this up and
let's throw some batteries in this phone
and power it up quick tour of the phone
before we throw the batteries in it
we've got a status LED on top it looks
like it only flashes red or green
depending on status a kind of a cutout
that makes it look like a display I
guess to make it easy for you to
recognize how to use the phone speaker
on top microphone down here on the
bottom a normal alphanumeric keypad send
in buttons I assume this is a volume
rocker right here on the side and our
headphone jack on the other side here
now only phones that were designed to
take advantage of the NSI exemption just
like this one were required to have this
sticker on the back it was added as a
modification to the rule in 2008 and
this one has it so it was built sometime
after 2008 even though there is no year
printed on anything I've seen here in
the manual or in the book so let's put
some batteries in here and see what
happens obviously we do not want to test
this test this hey look at that it's got
an ESN it says made in USA say even
though we can see that it was only
assembled in the USA
and it looks like it might work who
knows if it'll call 9-1-1 I'm not going
to be the one to find out I just want to
see if it powers on at least they
designed this phone to use standard
double a batteries for power in an
emergency you don't have to go hunting
for a proprietary battery a charge or
something to plug that charger into you
probably don't have power anyway just
knock the batteries out of your TV
remote put them in your phone and you
would have been good to go
why does this have the Motorola turn on
sound
we have a flashing red light and I think
it should turn green if it has signal
this may have been from a 3G network and
may actually never acquire a signal so
we'll find out we'll see what happens
here it did mention in the manual if the
light is blinking red there is no
service and it won't be able to make a
call this thing's pretty long in the
tooth at this point I don't know how old
it is like I said but it's old and it
might not work at all these days
it's been almost a minute and it has not
turned green yet and it's not looking
very good because it usually doesn't
take too long to acquire a network I
guess we'll give it a few more seconds
here see if it ever connects
interesting
it just powered back off it took so long
to find service
that it turned itself off
I guess it's never gonna connect well
unfortunately this 911 emergency only
cell phone is not going to be used for
any emergencies anytime soon or ever
again but it was definitely a cool
concept some companies decided they'd
Jump Right In and take advantage of a
rule designed to save lives and sell
some stuff in the process while the 911
emergency cell phone sure was an
interesting idea it's just not one that
works today with that said you probably
have a bunch of old cell phones laying
around your house if you haven't thrown
them out or your kids are playing with
them in any of those can probably still
call them 911 today just if you can
watch them and don't let them call 9-1-1
because you're just putting a big strain
on the system that will end up with the
law being changed in the future a lot of
cell phone carriers will give you a
phone with a number that can actually be
called back in an emergency if you can
prove the need is there it'll probably
be a lot newer than this one and it
might save your life in an emergency but
it'll probably only call one number at
least you can get a call back on that
number that is all I have for you guys
today thank you so much for watching
Tech throwback don't forget to subscribe
and I can't wait to see you on the next
one
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