A VoIP phone service, when making a 911 emergency call must have E911 also known as VoIP Enhanced 911 calling service provided by the Internet phone service provider. The problem is that since VoIP calls are transferred over the internet they are not routed to your local 911 call center on emergency lines. Instead they are sent to a private call center or a non-emergency line without address information and possibly without a callback number.

The good news is that all VoIP phone service providers by FCC mandate 05-116 must enable E911 calling that provides callback and location information. This is what is known as Enhanced 911 or E911 service.

Unfortunately some providers of VoIP phone service have yet to meet this requirement. So when choosing a VoIP company make sure they provide E911 service. See my article on VoIP Company

When I used to work for a Telecom company as a repair technician I worked a lot on MCK extenders which are Business VoIP Systems and one issue that came up was 911 emergency calls. There is a switch side or PBX that is at the main office and then if the company has other offices they would use a branch office extender known as an MCK remote. Now MCK is just one brand of VoIP phone systems available. This remote could be located in the other side of the country and if you called the local number of the main office and were transferred to a line located in the remote office it would still be using the local phone IP line. The problem with this is if someone from that remote office dialed 911 it would show up as the local office number and physical address. So the solution is to add an analog card to the MCK remote which is one of the options. The remote office would then subscribe to a local telephone number and plug in there analog phone. If they had a 911 emergency instead of using the IP voice line then they would have to use the analog telephone so that the call would be recognized locally.

Voice over IP is a great technology and with the E911 capability we can make a 911 Emergency call knowing it will go to the right place. All VoIP phone service providers will be wise to comply with the FCC mandate 05-116.

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