Why 911 Might Cost You Far More Than a Phone Call

If you dialed 9-1-1 from your PBX today, would someone find you?

With the seemingly constant budget crunch that enterprise IT departments are in; some vendors are reluctant to include expensive 9-1-1 specific enhancements in initial bid proposals to minimize the bottom line. Those that do are often challenged with justifying the costs and components just to deal with the 9-1-1 issue.

What it's All About
The REAL Cost of 911
But I Can't Afford It!
What are the E911 Laws?
What You Should Do

What it's All About

With the seemingly constant budget crunch that enterprise IT departments are in; some vendors are reluctant to include expensive 9-1-1 specific enhancements in initial bid proposals to minimize the bottom line. Those that do are often challenged with justifying the costs and components just to deal with the 9-1-1 issue. Additionally, many administrators feel 9-1-1 is a VoIP problem, and they might have only a small VoIP deployment, or one that is ‘planned for later’ so they can deal with it then. The fact of the matter is that 9-1-1 is an issue for all enterprise businesses, and TDM phones are just as susceptible as the latest VoIP solution to improper 9-1-1 call handling.

E911 call routing relies on Caller ID sent with the call to the PSAP. This caller ID is matched against a database that returns information about your location to the 9-1-1 call taker. Send the wrong caller ID, and you get the wrong PSAP, or the call taker gets the wrong address. See this chilling story from 2006. It’s that simple. VoIP compounds this problem since the telephone itself is extremely portable. Users can move their locations, while retaining their phone number. So this technology can lead to a terrible tragedy if the 9-1-1 environment is not properly managed.

The REAL Cost of 911

This brings me to the question “What is the REAL cost of 9-1-1?”

If you have gotten a quote for 9-1-1 on your communications system, you may have gotten a cost of as low as a few thousand dollars, to tens of thousands of dollars. Let’s look at the latest VoiceCon RFP E911 Bspecific responses. For vendor fairness, I’ll flatten the E911 responses from the “Big 3” and use an average cost of $18 per person for a 1500 employee installation. Some solutions were much more, and others were much less, but you can do your own research there.

But I Can't Afford It!

Based on this you can make the statement “An E911 solution from vendor XYZ would cost $27,000, and I am not sure I can afford that”. This is mathematically correct, but did you take into consideration that this investment may not even equal the legal retainer for a wrongful death lawsuit arising from an improper E911 deployment? Did you consider you may be in violation of OSHA for not maintaining a safe workplace? There have even been some who have argued that failing to disclose the 9-1-1 environment could be construed as a Sarbanes Oxley violation for not disclosing that fact to your employees.

Another response I would expect to hear is that “Only 14 states currently have legislation, and we are not one of them.” or worse, “We only bought it for our Chicago office due to the laws and not for the South Carolina office since there was no law there.” These may end up being decisions that are scrutinized by twelve people with no telecom experience sitting in front of you and your company on a jury; Not to mention what the local press is going publish about you and your company.

What are the E911 Laws?

PBX 911 specific laws, in the 14 states that do have them, are there to define requirements for E911 compliance, as well as assign penalties for non-compliance with the law. They have nothing to do with your company’s liability and duty to maintain a safe work environment. The lack of a law is a weak argument to fall back on when you’re in court. And the best practice would be to deploy 9-1-1 at a consistent level enterprise wide based on the most strict E911 laws. After all you have proven that you were able to deploy a better technology in some locations of your business, therefore you should be able to deploy the same solution in all parts of your business.

What You Should Do

In the end, you need to closely examine your E911 strategy when drafting an RFP or reviewing your communications infrastructure. What would you award in damages if you were on a jury?

That’s the REAL cost of E911 for your enterprise. Your insights and comments are always welcome!

Fletch

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