On Tue, 16 Jun 2015 21:50:10 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 6/16/2015 5:55 PM, micky wrote:

I did this 3 times and after the third time, a message displayed on the
top line (the notification line) that said "Emergency service only" or
almost that. Isn't that the message they give when someone hasn't
paid his bill, or he's switched his contract to a newer phone and the
older phone is only useful to call the police, fire, ambulance?

I assumed what had happened is that I buy 100 dollar gophone cards that
last for 365 days, and that the time period had expired (I hadn't made
other calls that day, none since the previous day.)

If the message doesn't mean that I'm no longer eligible to make phone
calls, what does it mean?

I was in the basement of a new, 10-story building, so there was some
iron above me, but if I had no bars and no signal, there would have been
no cryptic "Emergency service only" message either, right??

It is because you can connect to a tower, but not the one from your
service provider. Happens once in a while depending on where you are.
You can reach 91, but not other numbers.

Aha. That accounts for everything. Thanks for your wise advice.