We had a medical emergency during night last November, 26th.
When I tried to dial the “15”, which is the health emergency “SAMU” call number in France, I invariably got the message “Server error - Try again later”. It took me many minutes of consulting the internet to finally find a solution, namely to disable 5G and 4G in order to finally reach the SAMU.
Fortunately this emergency was not vital, but had it been, the problem encountered and the time lost could have had dramatic consequences.
Afterward I have tried my SIM card with a Samsung phone and didn’t encounter the same problem. By the way my french operator is “Free”.
So it seems to be either a FF specific problem or a FF+Free one…
I have created abug report (Request #1103851) on November, 27th.
This malfunction being particularly serious, I expected explanations and a rapid and effective solution from Fairphone and from Free, but I haven’t got any to date… Since the issue doesn’t occur on a Samsung phone Free answered me this is a FF problem.
My advice : make an emergency call test so that you’ll be sure it’s ok for you, especially if you are living in France
In all cases of emergency in Europe (including the UK) I would advise calling 112 from a mobile (or indeed any) phone instead of using “national” emergency numbers like 15, 17, 999 etc. This internationally-implemented number is more likely to work in any situation.
More info:
That’s not to say that dialling 15 shouldn’t have worked, and you are right to alert FP, Free and the community to this.
I agree that calling 112 is better (and btw, it works…) but, in France, many people are used to dial 15 for health emergencies, so it remains a critical issue for me.
Well, at least in France, the emergency services don’t answer immediatly so that you can check it works without disturbing them.
Moreover, IMHO it’s worth it…
I am still in contact with FF support teams about the emergency call numbers not working problem.
It seems that they are aware of it because they answered me that “Their devices are compatible with the most common emergency numbers around the world, such as 112 and 911” BUT “Localized emergency numbers are not always supported”.
Their advice is to always dial the country-wide emergency number from your smartphone. In France, and most of Europe, this is 112.
I continue to think that this is a critical issue that they should resolve. Should somebody encounter any emergency health which would end in a fatal issue, I think that their responsibility would be clearly engaged.
According to the Ministère de l’intérieur, you should contact the 112 or the 17 in case of emergency, not the 15 (Les numéros utiles nationaux | Ma Sécurité). They don’t mention the 15 as the first one to call.
Hi Alain,
I just tried to dial the 17 : It doesn’t work…
(and regardless of the official instructions, many French people are used to No. 15, so it remains very embarrassing that it does not work!)
Thierry
For your information, everybody