* Where would emergency personnel dispatch help to your organization?
Today, we’re wrapping up the series of guest commentary columns from Jim Cavanagh. In this column, Jim points out that even though we’ve been focusing on E-911 from the perspective of VoIP, there are many traditional nets for which E-911 has not yet been fully and effectively implemented.
Today, we’re wrapping up the series of guest commentary columns from Jim Cavanagh (e-mail). In this column, Jim points out that even though we’ve been focusing on E-911 from the perspective of VoIP, there are many traditional nets for which E-911 has not yet been fully and effectively implemented.
Jim says:
“Enterprise and residential adopters of VoIP service are growing increasingly concerned about emergency 9-1-1 dialing and have, in many cases, put off VoIP projects until the details are sorted out. But, what many organizations don’t realize is that even though they have put off VoIP to avoid E-911 issues they still have problems with their E-911 dialing. Many organizations, including the largest commercial operations, colleges and universities, manufacturing plants and city, county and state governments don’t have working and effective E-911 systems.
“Among the biggest problems is the dialing of 9-1-1. From inside a company, should an employee dial 9-1-1, or 9 (for an outside line) followed by 9-1-1? Many companies have security desks or internal emergency response that intercept 9-1-1 calls or have different extensions known to employees and often displayed on all phones. Dialing 9-1-1 or 9, 9-1-1 from inside many organizations, however, will cause emergency personnel to be dispatched to the location where the phone bill goes, often in a different state for organizations with voice VPNs, or to the room where the PBX sits, rarely where the caller is located unless the PBX maintenance tech has suffered a heart attack.
“The bottom line is that most organizations have a huge exposure of which they are unaware until an emergency occurs, and then it is too late. Upper management, facilities managers and telecom managers should immediately review their 9-1-1 systems and what the results of a 9-1-1 call may be. Testing should be coordinated with the local 9-1-1 agency and it should be made absolutely clear that a test call is a test call but a live test approach is preferable to a review of paperwork or the opinion of ‘experts’.”
We’ll sign off (hang up?) on the E-911 issue for the time being, but rest assured that we’ll continue tracking this most important issue and there will be more discussion forthcoming. Many thanks to Jim for sharing his expertise.
Links to the rest of Jim’s articles in this series:
911: If we can’t find you, we can’t help you, 09/28/05
Good news for 911 call centers, 09/26/05
VoIP and E-911: The FCC steps in, 09/07/05
VoIP and E-911: Why all the fuss?, 09/05/05
