Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency • Hacker News Board

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#241

Post by milosmns » Sat, Sep 30, 2023, 9:53 PM UTC

turminal wrote: post #18

Why would they design the system in a way that enables an app (Microsoft Teams) to interfere with emergency calls? I know this part is supposed to be fixed, but it's insane that this was part of the problem.

It is possible to intercept a lot of Android system broadcasts. In the B2B world, we often had weird requests to take over the whole phone experience and do something different – made possible by the same core Android APIs that they ship both to business devices and personal devices.

I'm also not surprised to read that Teams was to blame, because Skype had the same functionality back in the days.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#242

Post by kiwijamo » Sat, Sep 30, 2023, 9:58 PM UTC

alerighi wrote: post #46

chrismorgan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If talking about the US (though it’s not the only place that uses the number 911, and I would imagine that other countries’ numbers would be affected): all the major 3G networks have been shut down, so your current options for major networks are T-Mobile’s 2G network (which I successfully dialed 911 with a couple of months ago while in the US, but it’s only spottily available, and it’s being shut down next year), or…

The problem with 4G (and 5G) is that it supports only internet traffic. Phone traffic is passed trough VoLTE that is VOIP on the network. Is something that is fairly new, few years ago only a couple of operators in my country even supported that, and thus phones had to drop to 3G to handle calls. Also VOIP is not that reliable and presents problems especially with different networks. The problem is when the internet…

I think you missed the point in the post that you are replying to saying carriers have dropped 3G and the only remaining 2G network is also on its way out. Where I live all carriers are planning to phase out 3G by the end of 2025. All but one carrier have already phased out 2G.

We need to forget about falling back to 3G or 2G as that is not a viable solution in the long run. The carriers and phone manufactures have a responsibility to make emergencies calls work well over VoLTE.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#243

Post by milosmns » Sat, Sep 30, 2023, 10:06 PM UTC

Interesting. This might not be a bug in Google's dialer (or the OS, or hardware). Based on my past experience building B2B SIP clients, I remember that there are ways to intercept many of the Android system broadcasts. I'd bet on that being the root cause. Intercepting would look like the app is crashing, when instead it would be attempting to re-route requests to a different app; someone else mentioned they detected Microsoft Teams doing that. I remember Skype also had this feature, so it sounds plausible.

In the B2B world, we often had weird requests e.g. to take over the whole phone experience and do something different – this was made possible by the same core Android SDKs that they ship both to business devices and personal devices.

For example, we were required to move each 911 call to our app first, then check if we can route it quicker through the internal PBXs, and if not – send it back to the native/built-in dialer. This was possible a couple of years ago, we built it. I assume it's still possible because it's really rare that you need this kind of functionality... releasing such an app also requires a special review from Google. Maybe Google sees it as a low risk to the user experience and allows some apps to still do it, at least until something like this issue happes.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#244

Post by paulddraper » Sat, Sep 30, 2023, 11:03 PM UTC

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #233

paulddraper wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly liability insurance exists. Let me know if find answers to my questions.

You know any software engineers with liability insurance? Also, you would have learned of many examples had you gone to engineering school, we have whole courses dedicated to laws and ethics.

Yes many software engineering firms hold liability insurance.

And many software engineering contracts contain liability clauses.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#245

Post by philipov » Sat, Sep 30, 2023, 11:37 PM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #221

numpad0 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must have the UI? Call your factory, ask them make an extra ICE and hook it up to the simulator through an attenuator and shielded cables. Easy. Cost couple cars worth, so what. Add noises, simulate phasing, handover, do anything you want to. premises is, you're a top mass market smart phone manufacturer, and Google, both of that at the same time. No, you're trying to find a way to make it sound impossible. But w…

No. I'm just saying that it costs like $40-100k in practice to get a screened room into operation, not $10k, but that this is still a reasonable expense. But you're too boiling over in vitriol to understand nuance. Somehow, in your mind , saying that you can't do it for $10k appears to be me defending Google.

I think maybe GP is getting you confused with the person who brought up the suggestion it's expensive in the first place, before we started looking into what the numbers really would be. While the initial statement of that sounds like defending Google, that wasn't you, and unpacking the costs is intellectually interesting on its own merits, say, for anyone who might want to do it themselves.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#246

Post by clnq » Sun, Oct 01, 2023, 12:18 AM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #71

When I had a Pixel4, I witnessed a car accident in which someone got hurt quite substantially. Hard as a tried, the process of dialing 911 failed multiple times; the phone app simply crashed and left me with a blank screen or the home screen. I put a complaint in with my carrier but nothing was ever done. And of course Google could give 0 fucks with their customer support. A few months later, I needed to call 911 for…

My colleague once told me that the reason telecom providers took so long with Android software updates was because they had to verify that the phone meets regulatory requirements after the update. One of these requirements was being able to dial 112 (Europe's 911) very thoroughly. There was a legally prescribed process (by BNetzA, IIRC) for doing that in Germany. After a quick Google search, it seems like there is something like that mandated by the FCC in the US.

I wonder how the Pixel 4 passed it. Not just in the US, but in many countries.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#247

Post by davewasthere » Sun, Oct 01, 2023, 12:40 AM UTC

Had exactly the same thing in Australia when trying a 000 (Australia's emergency number) call with my Pixel 6 Pro after watching somebody run off the road and smash into a pole.

Fortunately I had the local police station number and was able to call that just fine, but not until a few failed attempts at the real emergency number.

That said, another good option is attempting to call 112. Which is an emergency number in many countries. (Works in the US too).

But yeah, it's not good.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#248

Post by simfree » Sun, Oct 01, 2023, 12:53 AM UTC

radicaldreamer wrote: post #215

exabrial wrote: post #71

When I had a Pixel4, I witnessed a car accident in which someone got hurt quite substantially. Hard as a tried, the process of dialing 911 failed multiple times; the phone app simply crashed and left me with a blank screen or the home screen. I put a complaint in with my carrier but nothing was ever done. And of course Google could give 0 fucks with their customer support. A few months later, I needed to call 911 for…

Someone could put all of these reports together along with the paper trail of unresolved complaints to Google through discovery and likely end up with a great class action case or even a criminal negligence case. 911 is one of those things that absolutely must work and most phones will allow you through using any available network if you are out of range of your primary carrier. The fact that this is unreliable on an…

911 obviously doesn't have to work given the blatant disregard Google has had for 911 performance over multiple phone generations. I consistently had 911 calls fail on my Pixel 6, which led me to get rid of that device.

Some Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) also give zero shits about call answer time, NG911, 911 via text, or even consistently working E911.

E911 provides a static address to the public safety answering point when a 911 call comes in. NG911 enriches this with more accurate latitude longitude and height above ground level data, or for phones that are in a fixed location a room number or extension number can be provided to make it much easier for a routing emergency services.

We need a national system for 911, not this mishmash of 10 to 30-year-old proprietary systems serving the 5700 PSAPs put together for each department on a township, city or county basis, with minimal coordination across regions and states.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#249

Post by simfree » Sun, Oct 01, 2023, 1:02 AM UTC

clnq wrote: post #246

exabrial wrote: post #71

When I had a Pixel4, I witnessed a car accident in which someone got hurt quite substantially. Hard as a tried, the process of dialing 911 failed multiple times; the phone app simply crashed and left me with a blank screen or the home screen. I put a complaint in with my carrier but nothing was ever done. And of course Google could give 0 fucks with their customer support. A few months later, I needed to call 911 for…

My colleague once told me that the reason telecom providers took so long with Android software updates was because they had to verify that the phone meets regulatory requirements after the update. One of these requirements was being able to dial 112 (Europe's 911) very thoroughly. There was a legally prescribed process (by BNetzA, IIRC) for doing that in Germany. After a quick Google search, it seems like there is so…

The Pixel 4 probably reliably called 911 on the simplest network config, like GSM or CDMA, but when encountering WCDMA, VoLTE and all the fun ways you can configure these technologies, you ended up with situations where the phone would perhaps have data service, but no ability to dial 911.

T-Mobile has had manufacturers brick band 12 on phones like the Moto E because you would get rural data coverage with this band, but T-Mobile did not sell any Moto phones and did not want to write a software config for VoLTE for Motorola phones. Without band 12 enabled the phone will happily roam onto AT&T or Verizon in areas where T-Mobile doesn't offer GSM service instead of hanging out on a cellular network that can never provide calling or texting at that location.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#250

Post by simfree » Sun, Oct 01, 2023, 1:09 AM UTC

nneonneo wrote: post #121

Kwpolska wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of the linked Reddit post was unable to find anything for other Android brands, and only three cases across ten years for iPhones.

And, it’s worth pointing out that the sales volumes of iPhones and just Samsungs (not counting any other brand) are many times that of Pixel, so if there was an issue even nearly as frequent with those phones it would definitely have been noticed by now.

Samsung has probably automated this testing given the number of SKUs they support, and they definitely have a lot more developers who are familiar with the cellular modems they use (Exynos and Snapdragon) to fix up edge cases unlike Google.

The Pixel 6 (Pro and non-Pro) is a great example of an improperly tuned LTE/5G NR modem. Cellular connectivity was unreliable as could be, and the random No Network issue seemed consistent across T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T, meanwhile a Pixel 7 or any other phone is stable and able to call/use data when this is occuring.

If this were a Samsung phone, it is likely their internal engineering could have identified the Exynos modem issue and pushed a patch, but no one at Google was familiar with the modem they bought from Samsung and they certainly have little leverage over 'em to get issues like this resolved.