Emergency Only

Hi my phone keeps saying Emergency Only when ever I try to make a call how do i disable this setting?

LG 1300i
fido

I have this phone, and here are 2 reasons it happens to me:

1. Make sure you are in a GSM coverage zone. I get this problem at my parents' house, where there's no coverage.

2. Sometimes my phone just "wigs out" and it gets this error in covered zones. Usually a power cycle will fix it.

whats a power cycle?

Turn the power off. Leave it off for 30 seconds. Then power it back on.

You should (supposedly) power cycle every 2 or so days. I do it about once a week, and I do notice that features such as the time are more up to date.

ok i'll try that but is my phone pretty much dead?

sometimes it will also say emergency only when you haven't paid your bill and the company suspends your phone. are you past due on anything?

Or if you're roaming on a GSM network that has no roaming agreement with your carrier. Then it's 911 only.

seems most likely, go into settings and manualy net select ur net, if its not there then theres your ans, if it is select it

Actually, I just had this problem 2 days ago with my c1300. I was trying to make a call from work, where I've always had coverage. The weather was pretty overcast and I did not "reconnect" with Cingular until I was a couple of blocks away from work. I tried my standard power cycling trick, but to no avail.

If you haven't gotten your phone problem figured out yet, I suggest finding a friend who uses Cingular. You can try a couple of things:

1. Have your friend use his phone when you are receiving the emergency message. If his/hers works, you know there is coverage.

2. Power down their phone, swap in your SIM. Since you are both Cingular, it should recognize your SIM. If you can connect, I would assume the problem is your phone.

3. If your SIM in his/her phone does not connect, have your friend insert their SIM into your LG and see if it connects. If yes, I think your phone is the problem.

This should exhaust the possibilities of problems in the coverage area, your account, and your phone.

Not sure if GSM is like CDMA with roaming lists... I know on all the phones i've ever had, it's a good idea to update your roam list especially if you are planning to travel. Call your carrier and have them update your PRL. (roaming list) Even though you had coverage one day at your office, if their contracts with other carriers changed, you could have lost the ability to connect to one network, and the new agreement with another network, your phone does not know about.

On the new OTA phones (over the air programming) on verizon, you just dial *228[talk] and select update roamling list when prompted. Not sure what/if cingular has something like this.

I have just signed up with Cingular and am using a Motorola Slvr phone. It
also keeps going into "Emergency Only" mode at various times and lasts,
sometimes for a long time and other times it will go back into normal service
within a few minutes. The phone was purchased from ebay and apparently
someone in the past has changed the security code so the Cingular store was
unable to try a master reset to see if that would correct the problem. The
phone works great on Cingular otherwise.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to correct this phone? I have borrowed
another Cingular phone and the sim card works perfect in it so I'm sure it's
the phone. My local Cingular store wasn't able to suggest anything other
than a master reset but we can't figure out the security code since it has
been changed.

Thanks for any help.

Jim