Star Telecom has officially partnered with RedSky to provide compliance with FCC’s Ray Baum’s Act and Kari’s Law for the contact center industry. In emergency situations, calls to emergency services need to be simple and direct, plus automatically provide dispatchers with the exact location of the caller. This partnership eliminates the complexity of implementing an e911 solution for contact centers across North America.
What are the FCC’s RAY BAUM’s Act and Kari’s Law?
These laws require every 911 caller from any sized organization in the US to be easily located and routed to the correct PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point), as well as notify stakeholders within the organization where the call came from. It also requires 911 dialling on any type of phone, without the need to dial a number beforehand to place the call. For example, a user must not be required to dial a number first before dialling 911.
The laws state:
- Every phone that can call the public switch network must be able to dial 911 directly, without dialling anything to get an outside line, which includes all softphones.
- All 911 calls must provide notification to the front desk, security, and/or administrative personnel including the telephone number of the caller and their “dispatchable location.”
- Section 506 of Ray Baum’s Act defines “dispatchable location” as information such as: Street address, Floor, Room # or Zone
- If the location has an open line of sight, one dispatchable location is sufficient
- If the location has an obstruction of sight, multiple dispatchable locations are required
Canadian organizations are also urged to begin compliance as similar laws will be in effect in the near future. The CRTC has released this article providing recommendations to ensure direct 911 dialling. To be ahead of the curve, Canadian organizations should adopt an e911 solution not only to be in compliance when the laws are in effect but to ensure the safety of their staff members in emergency scenarios.
What is the Solution?
The RedSky e911 solution is a platform that brings all of these regulatory items together in one place to ensure you are compliant. The platform allows for managing locations with ease, passes address information directly to a PSAP (public safety answering point), adds stakeholders for automatic notifications, and allows for direct 911 dialling from a Genesys Cloud CX or Microsoft Teams platform. The solution not only notifies stakeholders through SMS, Email, or desktop screen-pop alerts, but stakeholders can either listen in or join in on the call to assist further. Also, all calls are securely stored for 30 days
The Redsky e911 solution also supports mobile/remote users with the use of an app. Within the app, remote users can update their locations in real-time.
For additional safety in case of a dropped call, an agent will receive a callback immediately to the number they dialled from.
Any call that has no address will be automatically routed to emergency response centers.
Who Needs to be Compliant?
If any phone can dial to the public switch network, then it has to be compliant with these laws in the United States. We anticipate that these laws will soon be applied in Canada as well. Jerry Eisner, the VP of Public Safety for Redsky mentions “If you can dial for pizza from your phone, then you must be able to dial 911”.
Star Telecom Enhances the Solution Further
As both Genesys and RedSky partner, Star Telecom continues to look for ways to improve solutions it offers as a partner. Currently, Genesys Cloud Voice users must manually add locations and notification lists to the Genesys Cloud platform which can be very tedious, time-consuming and problematic from a compliance/adherence audit perspective. The inclusion of RedSky E911 handling makes real-time location configuration and notification list management simple and straightforward. Additionally, Star Telecom has developed a managed User Synchronization process to automate user management and synchronization between Genesys Cloud and RedSky. Contact Star Telecom to learn more.
In addition to the above, Star Telecom also:
- Provides reliable telecom services with an availability track record of 100%
- Offers 6X carrier redundancy & premium voice quality in emergency scenarios
- Has two decades of industry experience
- Provides 365/24/7 customer care with a 10-minute response time
- Assigns a dedicated account manager who is always ready to work closely with its customers
Summary
For regulatory compliance and most importantly, safety reasons, Star Telecom encourages you to reach out and begin your e911 compliance solution. Star Telecom takes great pride in providing only the best customer experiences and working closely with its clients to answer any questions throughout the process immediately and accurately. Get in touch with Star Telecom today to learn more.