@Tornow1500 wrote:
Honestly, I think that this service should be available without the need of a SIM card, similar to 9-1-1.
9-8-8 and 9-1-1 are Emergency Services numbers. Their calls are prioritized before any other calling traffic.
9-1-1 (now E911) automatically triggers location-requests on the device (and the 911 operator can send an override signal to enable location regardless of software settings if deemed necessary). The cellular network itself constantly triangulates, tracks, and monitors active phone locations with good accuracy as part of its normal function anyhow (the cellular radio network itself has to constantly know where the phone is physically located to actually provide any service, lol, even if the phone software pretends that the user's location can't be discovered).
But I don't know if 988 also provides the location service. And I suspect that 988 counselling/conversation sessions on the phone can be quite lengthy, so they might have a way to de-prioritize calls-in-progress back down to "normal" subscriber traffic. The emergency channels are dedicated to emergency communications, you don't want to lock them up with somebody's hours-long tearful conversation when somebody else needs to dial 911.
https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/phone/988.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_telephone_number
