Managing locations for Unified-Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) deployments that scale into the hundreds or thousands of phones while supporting a large at-home or remote workforce can quickly escalate to a challenging task for any enterprise or UCaaS provider. Without the right automated E911 management technology, organizations may find that migrating to UCaaS requires additional administrative resources and time to effectively manage E911 locations for all users, and to maintain compliance with appropriate federal and state laws. A cost-effective and efficient solution for simplifying E911 location management is leveraging Next Generation 911 (NG911) technology.
NG911 and E911 Location Management
Rather than maintaining a centralized database that IT must regularly update, NG911 is able to use network-level information to assign the initial location of an endpoint and track its movement. NG911 allows endpoints to track their own location information and deliver the location data with the 911 call to the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). UCaaS providers can leverage NG911 location management capabilities not only to provide granular location management, but also to enable dynamic tracking of user locations without requiring users or administrators to configure location information manually.
Leveraging NG911 for BYOC Options
Many organizations, especially large companies with global operations, wish to benefit from “Bring Your Own Carrier” (BYOC) options to maintain their own SIP trunking as they migrate to UCaaS. Those using BYOC can take advantage of NG911-based dynamic location management capabilities by either leveraging a third-party E911 call routing service or using a combined SIP and E911 provider.
The Future Availability of NG911 for UCaaS
NG911 greatly simplifies both the initial setup of E911 locations configuration and the ongoing administration of E911 location information. As a result, NG911 for location management is quickly gaining widespread support from phone manufacturers as well as UCaaS providers within their softphone apps. However, most UCaaS providers do not yet support NG911 capabilities. In most cases, manual intervention is still required to update locations, meaning additional cost, complexity, and potential for error for UCaaS providers and clients.
UCaaS and phone providers can team up with an E911 management vendor like Intrado for implementing automated location determination and call routing solutions. These services enable UCaaS providers to support vast deployments of softphones with a mix of onsite and remote users while meeting RAY BAUM’S Act requirements that will be effective for fixed devices on January 6, 2021 and non-fixed clients on January 6, 2022.
For a deeper dive into how NG911 technology can be leveraged for automating E911 location management for UCaaS, download What Enterprises Need to Know About E911 and UCaaS. In this thought-leading whitepaper, Intrado, in collaboration with Nemertes Research, explore how NG911 can support UCaaS providers, offer examples of current solutions, and provide an outlook of the future availability of NG911 for UCaaS.
