EC500 dialing 911 out of state

[Avayapbxtech]

We need to know when people travel and use the EC500 feature as a method for receiving their calls via a cell phone or another office phone. If they where to dial 911 would the phone system be able to recognize that they were out of state and not in their home office?

 

[DAVIDPAYNE]

EC500 by it self is not a PBX extension. All EC500 does is send calls to the cell number (or what ever number it is programmed to send it to.) If they dial 911, then there cell phone carrier would be the one routing the call. Just like it would for ever other call that is made from the cell phone.

 

[DAVIDPAYNE]

Additional even if you are using One-X mobile or some other feature, that gives your more PBX like function. It could not know where the cell phone is (i.e. the 911 region) because it does not have access to the cell tower information. Only the cell carrier would have access to that information. The PBX, has no idea of where the phone physical is.

 

[Avayapbxtech]

What if Sales people are using their 'virtual" phones, would the Avaya system think they are in their "home' office or know that they are out of state if they dial 911? We need to know if any method that Avaya offers for allowing people to forward their phones while traveling can determine the location of the person when dialing 911.

 

[DAVIDPAYNE]

Ask your self how, can the PBX know where the Cell Phone is physical at? Where would it get that information? Does the PBX have some sort of access to the GPS information on the phone? It does not have access to that information. Even a softphone user of a laptop or a smart phone would have the same issue. The user can freely move around, as long as it has some sort of connection. By the PBX has no way of knowing where that location is.

 

[Avayapbxtech]

David, thanks for your input. I should have not used the word "cell phone" I was really referring a virtual phone and the user would be using thier office extension while traveling. Say, it's extension 7777 and the person's home office in NY, and they travel to CA, if they dial 911, from 7777 the 911 office would probably receive the address in NY and not CA, or is there a way that Avaya could deterine that the person is now in CA?

 

[Tolson]

If the user is using a feature like IP Softphone, there is a screen called "Emergency Settings" accessible from the Login screen. In here the user would need to set a local number that they are at, not their cell phone but a land line. This number would then be sent when 911 is dialled through softphone. There is also some switch modifcations that need to be done to enable this setting within the software.

 

[Avayapbxtech]

Tolson - thanks, I knew there must be a feature like that. Can you please provide more details on this feature and how we would set this up?

 

[Avayapbxtech]

I found this on the Avaya site regarding using IP Softphone for 911 calls:


Avaya IP Softphone can dial emergency calls (for example, 911 calls in the U.S.). It will reach solely the
local emergency service in the Public Safety Answering Point area where the telephone system is
located.
Please be advised that Avaya IP Softphone will not dial to and connect with local emergency
service when dialing from remote locations. You should not use Avaya IP Softphone to dial
emergency numbers for emergency services when dialing from remote locations.
Avaya Inc. will not be responsible or liable for any damages or injuries resulting from
misplaced emergency calls made from Avaya IP Softphone. Your use of this product
indicates that you have read this advisory and agree to use an alternative telephone to dial all
emergency calls from remote locations.

 

[Tolson]

The call would go to the emergency centre that is local to the PBX. Here we tell our users not to dial 911 through IP softphone, but the emergency info is set so that if they do then the emergency centre know that it is not local and can tell the user to hang up and redial or they maybe able to transfer the call.