Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
E911 in the United States has stricter obligations than most countries. Registering an address is only part of it.
Why the US is different
Two federal laws sit behind this. Kari's Law requires that 911 can be dialled directly, without a prefix for an outside line, and that somebody on site is notified when a 911 call is made. RAY BAUM'S Act requires a dispatchable location to reach the emergency call centre: the street address plus whatever else identifies where the caller is, such as a room or floor.
These are legal obligations on you as the operator of the phone system, not on us as your provider, so they are worth understanding rather than assuming they are handled.
This depends on CLASSOUND. The E911 solution covers systems in the US running CLASSOUND Core or Pro. Without CLASSOUND, 911 has to be arranged separately with a third party, and that is a decision to make before anyone starts working from a US address rather than after.
What has to be right
- An address per device, not just per building. In a large site a floor or a suite may be required. We register these for you and each one is validated.
- Notification. Someone in your organisation is alerted when a 911 call is made, so they can meet responders at the door.
- Direct dialling. Callers reach 911 without first dialling an outside-line prefix.
- The country code. It has to be +1, or the user's office number has to carry that prefix.
- Current software. Compliance starts from particular versions of the apps and of WMS. Anyone on an old phone app is the exception you have not noticed.
Tell people to allow location access in the browser. On a US system, a user who blocks the browser's location prompt has their ordinary outgoing calls blocked. Emergency calls are never blocked, but everything else stops, and it looks like a fault in the phone system rather than a browser permission. It is worth putting in the first line of your onboarding note.
Homeworkers and travelling staff are the hard part. A cloud phone in a different state does not have the registered address. Decide deliberately what should happen for those users, tell them, and do not leave it to assumption.
Phones and devices that are not Wildix need extra configuration before they will identify themselves correctly on a 911 call. Tell us which ones you have and we will take care of it.
Keeping it current
An address registered once and never revisited is the most common failure. Add "confirm the emergency address" to whatever you already do when someone moves desk, changes office or starts working from home permanently.
Do not test by dialling
Never dial 911 to check the setup. If you want to verify what would be transmitted, ask us and we will check without placing a call.
If you operate in the US
Tell us where your people are, including anyone working from home. We will set up what is needed and tell you what remains your responsibility.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.