To maintain safety for employees and comply with the law, phone systems must support emergency response and E911 legislation. This is easy to accomplish with phones associated with a residence. But what about multi-story office buildings where a person, using a PBX or a VoIP or a softphone or a cell phone places a 991 call? Will their call be received properly? Will the emergency operator receive the correct building address, floor, and room information? Will first responders be able to find the person in the building?
There are a number of software solutions available for wired telephones. Wireless telephony is an entirely different story. People traveling through an office environment might need emergency assistance and could easily make a 911 call from a wireless device. What happens then?
These and other questions need to be answered prior to implementing or changing the telephone concept in your organization. To shed light on the situation we put the following question out on LinkedIn.
What, if anything, will organizations have to do to meet E911 requirements when they replace handsets on desks with soft phones [voice over laptops] or cell phones?
The replies bring an enlightened look at where organizations stand with E911 and what they need to consider when going wireless -
The question stems from two trends that seem to be at odds – instant communications (cell, soft phone, etc.) without regard to physical location, and the law that dictates that physical location of individuals is important for first responders, safety and security. Workplace management is struggling with these divergent trends.
A friend at Citibank told me they use software that prompts the user to identify their physical location (office, home etc) whenever their laptop is plugged into the office network from a new location / IP address.
Just to be clear, the essence of the question is how does one know the physical location (X, Y, and Z components) when someone is calling from a device that is not associated with a physical location? Hand sets of traditional PBX’s and some VoIP systems are fixed to a location, so when a call comes from that device, the emergency responders know where to go – 23rd floor, room 101. But what do firms do to comply with the law if they where to take out the physical phone devices (handsets on desks) and replace it with soft phones that are as portable as the laptop on which the software runs.
I was unaware of E911 legislation, but I think the situation is applicable not just to large organizations - Many people I know have replaced their home phone lines with VOIP services from Vonage, Comcast and the like, and as far as I know, suffer from the same issue as far as 911 calls go...
There is currently no new pending legislation. The question is about compliance with the legislation that now exists. Sixteen states have existing legislation, but there is no consistency or interpretation amongst them; and none address the issues associated with soft phones or cell phones.
As for GPS on cell phones and soft phones: what about the “Z” component of location? In a multi-story office building, GPS defines your X,Y coordinates, but may not define how “high” you are. So, an emergency responder would not know the floor from which the call came. Additionally, a GPS locator capability can be turned off on the phone, and in many office buildings the signals are weak or non-existent.
- Senior management must become aware of Enhanced 911 legislation in their facility locations. Non-compliance is breaking the law.
- Wired PBX’s and VoIP systems (handsets on desks) provide the best and easiest opportunity for compliance with Enhanced 911 legislation.
- Wireless telephony (soft phones on laptops, cell phones, etc.) presents a serious technological challenge to maintain compliance and more importantly employee safety.
So what can we conclude? Prior to any decision to migrate an organization’s telephony to fully wireless (soft phones on laptops, cell phones, etc.) senior management must closely vet the environment to ensure compliance with E911 legislation.
