Enterprise continue to face E911 compliance challenges with mobility poised to introduce new concerns
For the last five or so years at Enterprise Connect I’ve had the opportunity to moderate a panel discussion on the topic of Enterprise 911, or E911 for short. Each year, after the session, we ask ourselves if we’ve run out of things to talk about. And each year, the answer is a resounding “no”. Judging by the recent posts here on NoJitter, including “The Funding Needed to Upgrade Our Public Safety Infrastructure Just Went Away” by Martha Buyer, “911 Is Getting a Lot Smarter. Here Are Several Things You Need to Know” by Martha and Mark Fletcher and “The Basics: Enterprise E911 vs NG911” by Melinda Sensabaugh, E911 topics are still top of mind for enterprise IT leaders, vendors, and consultants.
The challenges of implementing and maintaining a compliant, and manageable E911 strategy are reflected in Metrigy’s latest Workplace Collaboration study of 440 organizations, approximately 65% of which have operations in the United States. Among this group we found some surprising results. Today, just 62.7% of participants believe that they are fully compliant with the dispatchable location transmission requirement in RAY BAUM’s Act, and the direct dial to a 911 emergency call center with notification requirements in Kari’s Law. Of those organizations which have not yet achieved compliance, 100% say they will be Kari’s Law compliant by the end of 2024, and almost 87% say they will be RAY BAUM’s Act compliant in the same timeframe. While it’s nice to see that the vast majority of companies are heading toward compliance, anything short of 100% creates potential legal and civil risk.
As we’ve noted in our past sessions, and as others have written about, defining “compliance” remains a challenge. The laws provide compliant requirement dates for installation of new multi-line telephone systems, but many companies read that requirement to say that their older phone systems are somehow exempt from compliance.
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With RAY BAUM’s Act now fully in effect, IT leaders should focus on ensuring compliance, and evolving their strategies to support mobility, remote work, and Next Generation 911
With the January 6, 2022 date for compliance with RAY BAUM’s Act for non-fixed endpoints now past, those responsible for 911 location and call routing management may be lulled into a false sense of security. While it’s true that there are no currently pending new legislative requirements, the work in ensuring employee safety continues to evolve.
Below are five areas that IT leaders should consider for 2022 and beyond:
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IT leaders responsible for communications strategy and compliance must answer a series of significant questions, outlined here.
Those responsible for managing their organization’s E911 strategy face the following new challenges:
- The shift to remote and hybrid work means that employees are largely no longer working from a fixed location.
- The increase in the adoption of softphones changes the way individuals make calls, potentially creating more difficulty in reaching a 911 operator, especially for home-based employees.
- Employees are more reliant on their mobile devices for making phone calls than ever before.
- On-premises PBXs are rapidly going away as organizations increase their use of UCaaS.
- UCaaS, coupled with bring-your-own-carrier for PSTN connectivity, adds additional management complexity in ensuring 911 call routing and location management.
At the same time, two new regulations I previously discussed, including Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act, have taken effect.
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