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> The priority here should have been to explain and disseminate the workaround, not to start with several sentences of establishing that the blame must be shared.

Below is one of the comments on the original reddit thread that gives more context of how this could happen. u/rbrome on reddit thread[0]:

Teams is a wide-ranging service that includes VoIP phone service. I believe it is designed to replace your company's phone system if you want it to. So it makes sense that it registers with Android as a VoIP service.

There are situations where someone might want/need Teams to handle a 911 call. Perhaps you have an Android device with Teams that's designed to be a campus-only phone, without cellular service. Any device that presents as a phone and can make calls, is required by the FCC to be able to complete a 911 call.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/r4xz1f/comment...

>> Perhaps you have an Android device with Teams that's designed to be a campus-only phone, without cellular service.

Unless it lacks a cellular radio entirely, I find it unlikely that voip would be a better option than cellular service on any college campus I'm aware of.

You don't need cellular service to call 911, just signal.

Take a Nexus 7 WiFi with teams installed. It can do phone calls. It can’t receive cell signals. It has to be able to handle 911, by passing them through to teams.

Yeah, but the device really ought to make a 911 call using the cell radio if at all possible (i.e. it has a cell radio with a signal), and only fall back to third parties if not. This is different from the normal call flow, where you might delegate all non-emergency calls to the third party.

>Perhaps you have an Android device with Teams that's designed to be a campus-only phone, without cellular service.

I feel I don't care about vanishingly rare use case of a wifi-only Android device on a campus network. If a device has a cell phone radio in it, it should be able to make a 911 call, and letting an app block that is inexcusable.

Disagree. They provided context allowing people to understand the reason for what would otherwise seem a bizarre set of steps that seem to cure the problem in the meantime. It's clear and direct.

Context can be provided without all the filler expressions that play down the issue as the sentences progress. By the time they arrive to the workaround, this is how they continue:

> Out of an abundance of caution, in the meantime, we suggest

Does that suggest urgency to you?

> Because this issue impacts emergency calling, both Google and Microsoft are heavily prioritizing the issue, and we expect a Microsoft Teams app update to be rolled out soon – as always we suggest users keep an eye out for app updates to ensure they are running the latest version. We will also be providing an Android platform update to the Android ecosystem on January 4.

I believe heavy prioritization shouldn't involve planning to wait an entire month to issue an Android update.

So how does their "clear and direct" statement help those who happen to have their phones in this bad state, don't realize it because they haven't had to call 911, and haven't read this statement either?

I can understand disagreements over the wording and how it's interpreted, but would you at least agree that Teams should be disabled or removed in some manner, until the bug is fixed?

Personally, I frown on Google/Apple/whoever mass disabling apps for all users without warning, but if there is ever a case for a mass disabling, this is absolutely it IMO.

Unfortunately for Google, FCC sets the context here which is shown in Kari's Law:

"If 911 is dialed on anything that is a phone, your system must connect to 911."

https://www.fcc.gov/mlts-911-requirements

This is less of a "oh it's just a bug" and more of a federal compliance issue.

fortunately I can't "dial" anything on my smartphone. it doesn't have a "dial"

https://www.google.com/search?q=dial+phone

Serious, the cryptic statement could mean your message above should have called 911 instead of letting you enter the digits 9, 1, 1 into a message

fortunately I can't "dial" anything on my smartphone. it doesn't have a "dial"

https://www.google.com/search?q=dial+phone

Seriously, the cryptic statement could mean your message above should have called 911 instead of letting you enter the digits 9, 1, 1 into a message

this highlights that phones are now multi use. What's "making a phone call" is no longer clear. I "call my friends" via zoom/meet/fb messenger/line/slack/discord. I don't use phone numbers to call people. are all those varied services required to handle 911? I can "call people" via dating apps. Are the also required to handle this situation?

In short: yes.

Federal regulations are not something you want to be afoul of. Think of Eye of Sauron, but with the ability to take your money, and not for a reason you respect.

>Half of Google's response is corporate speak that plays down the issue.

Yes, I especially balked at this part:

>>and we are currently only aware of one user report related to the occurrence of this bug.

That is a fact about Google's awareness of the bug, or their ability to be ignorant of it, not a fact about its actually frequency of occurrence.

I'm pretty sure this isn't the only time it's happened. It's the only time someone forced them to notice.

> Google also has the power to immediately disable Microsoft Teams on most Android devices, until the fix is rolled out.

This seems heavy handed and unreasonable. Disrupting millions of people's lives to fix an unusual use-case (even if it might be life or death) is not proportionate.

They could disable the app only on devices that Google believes are impacted, not to mention not waiting an entire month to release a platform update that would fix the root issue.

As per Thier comment, Android 10 and up all devices. They would have to essentially take down Teams on android.

> They would have to essentially take down Teams on android.

Yes, and Google product managers can always choose to not act immediately, continue to allow the disruption of emergency calls on Android devices until the next app and scheduled OS update, and become felons.

Had it been a single guy popular app it would have had to kiss it's existence on android goodbye, in the case of MS, not so fast..

Wanting a 911 call to go through is an unusual use case?

It kind of is. How many times have you ever called 911? I never have.

Depends on where you live. Here in Baltimore I’ve called about 5-6 times in the past 2 years.

>This seems heavy handed and unreasonable.

Only in our dystopian software hellscape where we rely on software for absolutely everything, but get considered a rube for expecting anything to actually be reliable.