In the US, any cell phone, whether activated, with or without time prepaid, with or without a contract, or otherwise (except with a dead battery) is REQUIRED TO CALL and connect when you dial 911 - any time and any place.

The "clinker" in that is that there are large spaces between towns and in small towns where there is no "911" service to connect to.

All cell phones sold recently also are required to have a "GPS" sensor that emergency services (like 911 operators) can query to find your location - but again only a small percentage of 911 services have the ability to read the location info. Some 911 operators can get only a general area (by identifying the "tower" that picks up the call) but this is seldom accurate enough to dispatch help without additional information. The most accurate systems "triangulate" your location by the signal strength at multiple towers, and can locate you within a fairly small area if you're signal can be picked up by more than one tower. Probably the majority of 911 systems are "completely clueless" unless you can tell them where you are.

Some phones allow you to select whether to give "location information" to persons you call (other than emergency responders), but the person receiving the call must have a phone capable of displaying the information and few are. Some parents turn this feature on so that when the kid calls home they know (fairly accurately) the true physical location the call comes from; but most parents probably don't know that the capability exists - and any kid with a cell phone knows how to turn it off and argue that they called "from a place with a weak signal."

While ICE has been recommended as a "standard addition" to your phone book on the phone, there have been several others similarly suggested; and as the question above indicates there are many who don't automatically recognize the meaning of ICE.

Others you might want to include:

1. ICE
2. EMERGENCY
3. Owner (and/or SELF)
4. HOME
5. Spouse (if applicable)

The last few are helpful if someone (honest enough) finds your lost phone and wants to call you to tell you where to retrieve it.

The "activation" of a card, done at the point of purchase, merely reads the "card number" and transmits the information that someone has paid for that card. Without that activation, the service will not accept the minutes/days when you punch in the "secret number" for the card that's under the "scratch off" wax strip.

John