I assume GP envisioned some magic where it doesn't actually go to a human operator, it just somehow does a handshake with the 911 department's equipment instead.
Still not a good idea, since you don't want a bunch of phones DDoSing 911.
> it just somehow does a handshake with the 911 department's equipment instead.
> Still not a good idea, since you don't want a bunch of phones DDoSing 911.
Eh, it doesn't sound too bad as something to roll out eventually. About 240 million 911 calls per year vs. 280 million cellphones in the US, and a dry run test would be expected to use a fraction of the resources (short call, etc). So, to test once per year I'd think you'd need to make the call handling infrastructure a small percent wider, and that extra capacity is something you could even benefit from (because phones could avoid testing at peak times).
The big problem is that this tests the actual call handling (and perhaps address reporting, etc)-- but doesn't do much to test the actual UI, audio path, etc, under the circumstance of an emergency call.
Still not a good idea, since you don't want a bunch of phones DDoSing 911.