911 Alarm Test PRI

[southwell]

SX-200 ICP v5

I am looking to test our 911 service and alarm event generators since switching providers from loop start to PRI. Someone mentioned a way to do it with LS trunks (thread1329-1166501) but is there a way of doing it with an embedded PRI with the T1/E1 module? If not should I just assume all is fine and working or call the local PD and let them know first?

 

[dryaquaman]

What we do is simply dial 911. You should be confident that 911 is programmed correctly first so you don't make multiple calls.

If you need to test your emergency notification, you can point a test number - like a cell phone- to the same route your 911 goes to in ARS. Without knowing for sure there isn't some really really strange programming in your ARS this will work fine.

When testing with the 911 center, when thy answer "911 what is your emergency?" I say this is <my name> with <my company> testing 911 access. Could you please verify site name and address for me?"

There was only one case where we had a problem. A female tech made the call and for some reason the dispatcher thought she was in trouble and dispatched the cops even after she explained who she was and what she was doing. - go figure.

Dry Aquaman.

http://www.university-music-on-hold.com

 

[southwell]

dryaquaman,

Thank you. It's a small city so I called the PD ahead of time to let them know and ask if it was ok. She said that was fine and that she also receives the 911 call.

Anyway same lady answered and verified the information was correct. Good advice. No police so far haha.

 

[dryaquaman]

Glad I could help.
Last piece of advice:
Be sure you can dial 911 & 9+911 (or 8+ what ever your access code is. )
In a panic situation people dial what they're trained to so be sure both methods get there.

Also, per an earlier discussion on this forum, you may want to add in your system speed dial "911*" and point it to '0'. This will help avoid 911 mis-dials.

Dry Aquaman

http://www.university-music-on-hold.com

 

[southwell]

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "911*" to 0? Do you mean 911X or are you refering to the setup they have in faq1329-6966

We disabled panic 911 because it was causing too many false alarms. And managers did not want the interdigit timer to be that short so I thought it best to inform anyone with documentation on public telephones stating to dial 9 first.

Thanks again.

 

[dryaquaman]

The FAQ is another way of accomplishing the same thing. I've shortcutted it a bit via system speed dial.
The idea is to intentionally create a digit conflict so the system has to decide you meant to dial 911 or something else. The problem is that people, for some reason, will dial 9 and then '1' twice when dialing an external number. Usually this is accidental.

I create a digit conflict by creating a system speed dial of '911*'. Now, if anyone dials anything other than 911 or 911*, the call will fail with an error. In theory, no one would dial the '*' so 'actual' number of '0' is just a convenient place to send the call to if they really do dial the *.

Dry Aquaman.

http://www.university-music-on-hold.com