[VoiceOps] RAY BAUMS Act - How are people planning on complying?

[Mary Lou Carey]

Logically it makes sense that if your phone says it can't make 911 
calls, you would look for another phone. The problem is that when people 
are in survival mode or trauma mode, they don't do things that make 
sense! When I was much younger I worked for a medical clinic and I 
remember them telling us that if there's a natural disaster people may 
show up at the clinic thinking it's a hospital because when people are 
in trauma mode, they don't think rationally. They'll do crazy 
things.....like call their doctor when they're having a heart attack and 
ask if they should go to the hospital or show up at a clinic thinking 
it's a hospital and demand immediate care.

I think the same mentality applies here. People see a phone and if it 
has a dial tone they will attempt to make a 911 call regardless of 
whether there's a sticker stating that it can't make 911 calls. So its 
always best to provide 911 service if your customers can originate 
calls.

To get 911 service for your customers you can either order 911 trunks 
for each county through the ILEC (the expensive route) or you can 
connect with a VOIP 911 provider that will establish two diverse 
connections between them and your switch. You just send the VOIP 911 
provider the traffic and they'll take care of routing your calls to the 
appropriate PSAP. You're just responsible for keeping your customer's 
address location up to date in the ALI database.

I know at one time that there was a ruling that you had to provide your 
customer a way to update their location if you allowed them to move 
their phone to another location. I don't know if that was changed or the 
work around still remains that you can put a sticker on the phone 
stating that if you move your phone to another location it may not 
connect to the right 911 center. At any rate.....I wouldn't mess around 
with providing 911 services because the FCC doesn't consider it 
optional. The only waiver I"m aware of is the one that states your 
customers are only terminating traffic onto your network....not making 
any originating calls!

MARY LOU CAREY
BackUP Telecom Consulting
Office: 615-791-9969
Cell: 615-796-1111

On 2020-01-23 01:47 PM, Pete Mundy wrote:
> I guess different people have different interpretation of that wording 
> :)
> 
> To me it seems UNreasonable to assume that a phone or device with a
> sticker on it that says "This phone does not work for emergency calls"
> can call emergency services.
> 
> 
>> On 24/01/2020, at 6:46 AM, Carlos Alvarez <caalvarez at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I believe that the stickers on home phones may not really cover the 
>> liability.  The wording is something like:  A phone or device that a 
>> person would reasonably assume can call emergency services."  So the 
>> softphone is obviously different, but a physical phone at home seems 
>> like it must still work properly.
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