Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority
TL;DR A resident of Sydney, Australia, lost their life after being unable to reach emergency services.
After a preliminary investigation, the user’s telecom operator has claimed they were using an “unsupported Samsung handset.”
Certain outdated Samsung phones in Australia are known to drop calls when calling 000, Australia’s emergency line.
Samsung and major carriers in the region have urged consumers to update their phones or replace them.
An Australian citizen recently lost their life after being unable to call 000, Australia’s national emergency service line, on their old Samsung phone. The deceased was a customer of Lebara, a carrier that’s part of Australia’s TPG Telecom Limited and operates on Vodafone’s network in the region, and was unable to call Triple Zero despite having an active service.
TPG informed the ASX (Australian Stock Exchange) that the incident occurred on November 13 and that no network outage was detected at the time. According to The Guardian, TPG claimed the incident occurred because the victim’s call failed to connect, as they were using one of the 70-plus Samsung handsets deemed incompatible for dialing the emergency number.
The mishap follows a broader service outage of another major Australian telco, Optus, back in September that prevented several consumers from reaching triple zero and was reportedly linked to at least three fatalities, including that of an infant. The incident prompted a parliamentary inquiry, after which three of the largest Aussie telcos joined forces to list 71 unsupported Samsung models. The carriers, including Telstra, Optus, and TPG, had also urged consumers to update their handsets by November 7 or risk being blocked on their networks.
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