Apparatus and methods of establishing an emergency voice call include user equipment transmitting, and a first serving core network receiving, a request for an emergency call via a wireless access network. The apparatus and methods further include a determination by the first serving core network of an alternative serving core network. In some aspects, the determination may be made based on a user equipment location from a location retrieval function, which may obtain such information from other network components or from the user equipment. In other aspects, the determination may be based on lack of capability or lack of capacity. Further, the apparatus and methods also include establishment of the emergency call with a second serving core network different from the serving core network based on the determination.