Why?

E911 listings are required by regulatory governing the operation of telecommunication services in the Canada, as well as certain other countries. In order to be in compliance, you must ensure you have taken all reasonable steps to list CallerID's with applicable addresses for emergency services.

Listings are not required for each DID (incoming phone number). However, listings are required for each and every outbound CallerID to be used.

Do I have to list my remote employees separately?

Yes. Any phone that an employee dials out from must send proper E911 location information.

What if my employees move around a lot?

You need to make a concerted effort to keep their E911 information up to date, or have them choose their callerID using our Custom Caller ID Tool, to reflect the current location they are calling from.

Key Points

• Never assume that a 911 call will not be placed.
• Always ensure proper location information is listed, and updated from time to time if the user location(s) move.
• Never assume that you will be able to provide address information on a 911 call. While E911 services always confirm your location, in some instances where the caller is unable to speak, emergency services are dispatched to the listed location information.
• Ensure CallerID is always in proper format. Ex:4165551212
• For new deployments, you may perform a test call to ensure address information is being received by the 911 callcenter properly. This is especially important in multi-location and multi CallerID scenarios. But before making a test call, please contact the bvoip support team for instructions on how to perform an authorized test.
• Always ensure 911 listings are complete before allowing users access to the system. In some cases 911 has been dialed within minutes of a system going live.
• An unprovisioned 911 call (911 calls from a CallerID not listed) will result in a high fine per call, upwards of $250, as well as may be in violation of CRTC regulations for failure to list.

How?

How you implement this depends on your phone system configuration. See below for a few different scenarios.

Single location, single outbound CallerID

The most basic configuration would be a single office location where all extensions have the same outbound CallerID. In this case, the single outbound CallerID needs to be listed with that location's physical address.

In cases of large buildings, like schools or hospitals, it's recommended that you have dedicated CallerIDs for each room, with specific location information included in the E911 listing, to speed up emergency services ability to reach the emergency location.

Single location, multiple outbound CallerIDs

A single location where each department and/or user (extension) needs its own outbound CallerID can be configured in one of two ways:

1) Each outbound CallerID should be listed, even though they would all have the same address. Like mentioned above, large locations where departments are accessed through different entrances should always be listed individually.

2) We support emergency number rules with a specific CallerID being set. This means that although each department and/or user (extension) may have different outbound CallerIDs, the PBX can override the CallerID with a different one when 911 is dialed. In this case only one CallerID needs to be listed. See Setting Emergency Numbers for more details on this.

Multiple locations, single outbound CallerID

If a PBX system is shared between multiple businesses at different addresses or different locations, each location must be listed uniquely to ensure 911 responders have the correct address information. If all locations have the same outbound CallerID, some additional configurations are necessary.

Like in the previous example, you will need to assign DID's to each location/user even though they may never be used. Then that DID must be forced as the outbound CallerID whenever 911 is dialed, using the Emergency Numbers system.

Multiple locations, multiple outbound CallerIDs

As long as each location is set to have their CallerID set via either Outbound Call Rules, the Custom Caller ID Tool, or at the user's extension level, then each of those locations should be listed for E911 with their respective CallerIDs.