5 Ways a Mobile Phone can save your life
Other than simply calling the Emergency Services, your Mobile can offer more help than might otherwise be expected, ranging from simply understanding how they work, web applications and commercially available peripherals.
Lets start with the simplest first.
1. Keep you phone turned on.
This might not be as obvious as one would think. Very often people who call the Emergency Services will turn their phone off to save battery power. This is possibly the worst thing you can do; even with a low battery you may still have several hours on standby.
Turning off your phone not only prevents the Emeregency Services from contacting you, should they need to, but it also means your phone cannot be 'found' if you need to be located. And while we are talking about locating someone via their mobile phone...
Contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, tracing and locating a Mobile Phone which has called the Emergency Services is not done routinely and nor is it instantaneous; just because you have called the Emergency Services does not mean they have your exact location. Most Emergency Service telephone exchanges have upgraded to a system known as EISEC - Enhanced Information Service for Emergency Calls which means all calls made on a Mobile Phone automatically provide the ES operator with your telephone number and your service provider. With this information, the phone can be triangulated between its nearest Masts and the 'cell' from which you are calling can be identified. However, there are less Masts in rural and remote areas meaning your location may be with a margin of several hundred meters accuracy. Thirs process of loacting a caller can only be requested by the Police where there is sufficient need such as a Missing Person.
www.traceamobile.co.uk offer a mobile phone tacing service which claims to have an accuracy within 50m; whether this is true in remote areas remains to be seen but might be worth exploring as a back-up between your phone when you are out and your base.
2. Text 999
Calling 999 can only be done when there is enough signal strength. Even when you have barely any signal you may notice "SOS Only" or some similar message on your phone - At this moment you don't have enough signal strength to make a normal telephone call but if you were to call the Emergency Services, your service provider will 'drop' other calls that are taking place to enable your emergency call top go through at minimal signal strength.
When you have no signal, not even a 999/112 call will work, but a text might. Sending a text requires much less signal strength and the phone will keep tying to send the text for a short period meaning there is greater chance of the message getting through if you are moving or in an area of variable reception.
EmergencySMS is a simple and innovative system that was design to aid people who are deaf or have a hearing impairment but is finding favour as an insurance policy for people who head into rural or remote areas.
Another benefit to being able to Text to the Emergency Services is when you have enough signal strength but
- background noise prevents you from hearing (high wind etc.) or
- you may not want to verbally communicate (in a hostile situation, for example).
3. "ICE" your phone
To "ICE" your phone is to store contact information of who to contact "In Case of Emergerncy". This would be stored on your phone as "ICE John" in the phone's address book.
This scheme was created in the mid-2000s in the UK and has been adopted in several other countries including Australia and North America.
To add real value to you ICE contacts:
Think carefully about who you would want contacted first, in case of emergency. Most people instinctively put their spouse or parents as their 'ICE' contacts. If however, your parents are elderly or immobile, or your partner looks after the children, are they necessarily the most appropriate people to contact? Woiuld they be in a position to liaise with the emergency services?
A more appropriate contact might be a sibling or friend, with their own transport and no young people in their care.
Including a name and relationship so that the person calling also has some idea about who they are about to contact e.g. "ICE John Brother" or "ICE Sue Wife"
ICE Abroad
In non-English areas ICE does not lend itself as an acronym. The alternative E.123 protocol is to enter (e.g.) 01John in your Address Book as it would be the first number displayed, followed by 02Dad etc...
Keypad Locked?
Many smartphones have a function where a welcome message can be displayed when the phone is turned on or when the keypad is reactivated. Find out if your has and use it to enter some important information such as 'ICE'.
4. Emergency? There's an App for that.
The rise of the Smart Phone and free market for Aps has provided a range of Apps designed to get you out of trouble, based largely on GPS and First Aid information. Here is our Top 10 Apps for iPhone and Android.
5. Turn your phone into a Satellite communicator.
The Gold Standard for remote communication is the Satellite Phones, such as Iridium or Imnarsat. Whilst these are now much more affordable than 10 years agao and easily commercially available, other products and services such as SPOT Connect pair with your phone to send texts, access GPS information and send SOS messages via a satellite network
Choosing a phone
As with choosing a good watch, two schools of thought exist on mobile phones; some techophiles and early-adopters will constantly chase the latest develeopments but what is important is functionality. You can stick with your brick-like Nokia 5110 as a disposable sacrificial phone which is perfectly good at at making and receiving calls and texts (alhtough no-longer out of your registered country) and is not earth shattering if it gets lost, stolen or broken.
The other option is to spend more but expect to get more in return. For those who work or play in the outdoors, it is all about robustness. Sonim Phones (left) make some of the most rubust phones in the works with a Ingress Protection rating of IP68. More comercially available and socialbly acceptible is the Samsung Solid Immerse (middle), offering IP67 protection agains dust and water. For those who want or need media connectivity or Apps, this technology comes at the expense of protection. The Motorola Defy (right) and Sony Experia Active are both smart-phones offering IP55 protection. The Defy nudges ahead of the Active in our opinion due to the bigger screen.
