Kari's Law Compliance

EMERGENCY SERVICES ➜

With 101VOICE your organization can comply with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

KARI’S LAW

Driven largely by the efforts of Kari Dunn’s father following the murder of his daughter, Kari’s Law was signed into law on February 16, 2018.

Kari’s Law applies to multi-line telephone systems (“MLTS”) manufactured, imported, offered for first sale or lease, first sold or leased, or installed” after the compliance date of February 16, 2020.

REQUIRING A “PREFIX” WHEN CALLING 911 IS PROHIBITED. Locations with MLTS must remove any requirement that a caller dial “9”, “8”, or any other number to reach an outside line to make a call to 911.

ON-SITE NOTIFICATIONS. When a 911 call is placed from an MLTS, a notification must be sent to on-site personnel, alerting them to the emergency. The notifications to the appropriate contact can take the form of phone calls, visual alerts on a monitor, audible alarms, text messages, and/or emails.

WHO'S AFFECTED?

Laws set out by the FCC impacts enterprises of multi-line telephone systems (MTLS)

Companies with offices in multiple locations
Campuses–including K-12, universities, and colleges
Hospitals
Hotels
Retail facilities
Financial institutions
Warehouses

911 Regulatory Checklist

Providing 911 emergency support in the enterprise doesn’t just happen. It requires careful planning, especially in the midst of a cloud migration. Below are a list of questions and tips to help you maintain connections to 911 and regulatory compliance, while keeping your end users safe.

Have you consulted with legal representation regarding your compliance?

Here is a link to the FCC released Report and Order related to 911 and timeliness assistance which identifies Kari’s Law and Ray Baum act as mandatory implementations. We also suggest reaching out to our team for additional guidance on how to implement and confirm if you are compliant. FCC released its Report and Order

Can end users direct dial 911 without the need to dial an access code first? i.e., “*” or “9” for an outside line?

Yes, end users can direct dial 911 without a dial access code. Think about a child calling for help without knowing how to operate the office, hotel or school phone system.

Have you accurately mapped user endpoint locations including address, building, floor and/or room?

“Dispatchable location” (part of the requirement under RAY BAUM’s Act) is essentially the door that first responders need to find to assist callers. This address needs to be formatted correctly and validated for errors in a master street address guide (MSAG) format. 101VOICE performs this validation and error correction as part of our easy-to-use location provisioning process (using our dashboard or APIs).

Have you tested 911 across endpoints?

933 testing helps to limit the disruption that occurs when scheduling live 911 calls with public safety. Calling 933 from any 101VOICE-provisioned 911 endpoint will trigger an automated voice message relaying the caller name, call back number and address assigned to that endpoint.

Do you have a plan for virtual workers and satellite offices?

Your HR, facilities, and IT teams can work with your legal counsel to help you determine how to support users in remote locations.

Are notifications set up to notify key personnel in the event there’s an emergency?

Notifications can be provided via email, phone call recording, or SMS text message formats. To help enterprises with E911 compliance, 101VOICE offers a notification feature with both our E911 for VoIP and Unified Communications and E911 Dynamic Location Routing solutions.

MANAGING 911
REQUIRES UNDERSTANDING OF LEGAL & REGULATORY RISK

Potential exposures occur when enterprises:

Fail to adequately plan for remote workers, satellite campuses, etc.
Fail to provide dispatchable location information at the time of a 911 call
Don’t alert security teams and other key personnel that a 911 call has been made
Intercept 911 calls before sending directly to public safety
Replace PRI or dedicated circuits and move to the cloud
With the passage of the two important pieces of legislation, the FCC is rapidly moving toward establishing uniform federal standards for precise “dispatchable location” as well as internal notification of on-site teams to assist in response.

By February 16, 2020, enterprises must be compliant with Kari’s Law.

Additionally, failing to provide accurate location information during an emergency can delay emergency response times, potentially resulting in harm to individuals and damage to property.

Our Customers

"Frequently, voice services come from providers who might have a talented sales team working locally, but the actual service comes from headquarters and switching facilities across the country. With [101VOICE]’s headquarters and primary data centers locally, we are more confident that our district’s needs will be met, and any potential issues can be address quickly.”

“Over the years it has been a struggle to find the right telephone solutions for our organization. The systems and solutions the larger companies provided were bulky. 101VOICE turned out to be the right fit. They provided seamless transition, plus expert technicians to us through. We are enjoying the new phones, new features, and efficiencies of our new system. Above all, we are saving money which can now use to invest in our communities.”

“In an effort to decrease our telephony services costs, bring in better management, and control over our inbound and outbound calls, we decided to explore other possible solutions and were introduced to 101VOICE. The functionality of the platform is solid while also being very reasonably priced. 101VOICE's US based support have been extremely responsive and quick to resolve issues, which is an added benefit and a much better experience than with our previous service providers”

“101VOICE team is very professional, very responsive and a valued partner in supporting our educational program, especially during the pandemic. We appreciate all they do.”

“The greatest benefit and key selling point of the new system for our District was the low total cost of ownership. In comparison to other VOIP systems, be it on-premise, hybrid, or cloud based solutions, 101VOICE was the runaway winner in terms of cost.. Change is not always easy, but 101VOICE has made that transition a smooth one for our District. We are thrilled with our new phone system and highly recommend 101VOICE to other school districts.”

“101VOICE is a great company that provides a reliable, easy to use phone system. We have been working with them for several years and very rarely experience any issues with our phone system. When we do need any support, their support reps are extremely knowledgeable and can resolve any issue we have usually within a matter of minutes.”