When Americans call 911, they expect to receive help quickly. Businesses have an obligation to make sure their employees, customers and visitors have swift access to assistance in the event of an emergency. Here are three reasons businesses may want to rely on a 911 solution provider for support in fulfilling their safety responsibilities.
When emergencies happen in office buildings, retail stores, and other business settings, locating the source of the emergency and all individuals in need of help can be difficult for first responders. When it comes to business environments, first responders do not always have ample information about which room, floor, suite or area of a building they need to go to. This is particularly true if the person who called 911 used a business phone connected to a Multi-Line Telephone System (MLTS), such as a Unified Communications (UC) platform or an IP-PBX. Those calls only provide a street address to first responders, which is not enough information if the address leads to an office building with multiple floors.
An Intrado survey of 1,018 U.S. consumers revealed that 84 percent of Americans find it extremely to moderately concerning that 911 call takers have difficulty identifying a caller’s precise location when calls are made from places like office buildings. In order to quickly locate and help those in need when an emergency happens, first responders need precise location data. An Enhanced 911 (E911) solution provider like Intrado helps enterprises provide emergency personnel with vital information that allows staff and customers timely access to emergency assistance should they need it.
An emergency can happen on a floor or area of a building without others being aware of its occurrence. The building’s security team or lobby staff may not realize 911 was called, which may pose a challenge when first responders arrive and need direction on where to go to provide help.
Intrado offers an E911 solution that sends an alert to dedicated enterprise personnel with the 911 caller’s location information whenever a calling device connected to the enterprise’s UC or VoIP network is used to call 911. This helps improve the enterprise’s security team’s situational awareness so they can take appropriate actions during the emergency and be prepared for the arrival of first responders.
In 2018, two important pieces of legislation were enacted that are related to businesses and 911. One is Kari’s Law and the other is Section 506 of RAY BAUM’S Act.
On August 1, 2019, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted rules to implement both pieces of legislation. In accordance with Kari’s Law, unless exempted, users in an MLTS environment must be able to directly dial 911 without dialing a prefix, post-fix or trunk access code. Also, notification that a call to 911 has been placed may be required. In this same proceeding, the FCC adopted rules requiring that a dispatchable location be sent with calls to 911 from a number of communication platforms.
These pieces of legislation and regulation show that more attention is being given to how 911 works in enterprise environments. Intrado offers 911 solutions that help businesses comply with the new laws and regulations that impact them, their employees and customers.
These examples show a few of the many reasons why businesses should consider working with a trusted E911 solution provider. To learn more about enterprise E911 challenges and available solutions, download Emergencies in the Modern Workplace: Solving Emergency Location Issues and Improving Response Times.