E911 Location Services

Enhanced 911 or e911 is a service that allows the registration of a physical location to a VoIP or Wireless Phone Number.

911 calls with a caller ID of a registered number are then routed to the caller’s Local Public Safety Answering Point or PSAP, with the caller’s location automatically delivered to the emergency operator.

If calling 911 using the caller ID of an unregistered number, the 911 providers cannot determine the caller’s location. In this case, the call will be routed to a National Emergency Response Contact Center or ECRC where the dispatcher will have to ask the caller for their location. Calls to the ECRC result in a per call charge assessed by the 911 providers.

Activate e911 for a Phone Number

  1. Login to the RingLogix App.
  2. Search and Select an existing Customer.
  3. Click the Numbers link on the grey menu.
  4. Click the Settings icon for the desired number.
  5. Click the Features tab and click the E911 toggle to ON.
  6. Click the Add New Address link or Select an existing Address.
  7. Once complete click Submit.
  8. Review the Confirmation window and click Continue.

*Note: Make sure you see the message: “E911 address has been updated successfully”. See below for 911 best practices.

911 Best Practices

As mentioned previously, it is important to use a valid registered caller ID when calling 911. Below are some best practices to follow for different service types.

If the customer has multiple locations these best practices would apply to each location.

 

SIP Trunking

By default, caller ID on SIP Trunking services work in pass-through mode. Any caller ID provided by the customer equipment will be sent to the 911 provider.

If the customer is using an IP PBX it may be a good idea to create a 911 specific outbound route on their system with a registered number as the caller ID. This allows you to use other caller IDs for 7, 10 or 11 digit routes and or per Extension without having to register every phone number on the account.

If you are unable to control the caller ID on the customers equipment you can forcefully set the caller ID in the SIP Trunk settings. When forcefully setting he caller ID on a SIP Trunk it will apply to all outbound calls on that trunk.

 

Hosted PBX

When creating a new Hosted PBX you will input a specific “911 caller ID”. This is the default 911 caller ID for new User Extensions. You can change or override the “911 caller ID” for existing Users in the PBX Dashboard. This is separate from the normal caller ID used for standard outbound calls.

Make sure that any number set as a “911 caller ID” does indeed have e911 enabled on it.

Legacy Hosted PBX services allow to set a single “global caller ID” at the customer level which can be overridden the Extension level.