Patent ID: 8045953

Claim:
A method for automatically selecting an emergency number appropriate to a geographical area during roaming of a mobile station, the method comprising: a. maintaining on said mobile station emergency numbers for a users home network; b. storing on said device a preset parameter for indicating whether a TTY service associated with a geographic region is to be used; c. storing on said device a look-up table of emergency dial strings based on a geographic indicator, network type, and the preset parameter; d. comparing the emergency numbers against dial strings generated at said mobile station for asserting a valid emergency call if the dial string generated at said mobile station is amongst the emergency numbers; e. upon a valid emergency call being asserted during roaming, selecting an emergency dial string appropriate for the geographic region roamed irrespective of the dial string generated at said mobile station, said emergency dial string being selected by: i. connecting to a network if the mobile station is not already connected to any network to obtain a geographic indicator from the network, the network having a network type; ii. obtaining a geographic indicator from the network if the mobile device is already connected to a network; iii. obtaining an emergency dial string from the look-up table based on the obtained geographic indicator, the network type, and the preset parameter stored on the mobile station; and f. placing the emergency call to an emergency service provider using the selected emergency dial string such that the appropriate emergency number is called during roaming.