The Ray Baum’s Act compliance requirements took effect in January 2021. Yet, there are still an overwhelming number of organizations that aren’t compliant. Risking not only potential litigation, employee morale about perceived safety could also be impacted. If you’re not certain about your compliance, we will meet with you, at no charge, to provide a technical opinion. Schedule your free assessment.
Organizations, with few exceptions, must comply with the dispatchable location requirements of Ray Baum’s Act. However, the majority of companies don’t know the Act exists, don’t understand how to comply, and aren’t sure if they even have to comply. Further, Ray Baum’s Act is complemented by Kari’s Law, to which all of the same challenges exist.
Addressing Awareness
To address awareness, we launched a massive education campaign to help bring awareness, and create a path to compliance for organizations that need to take the next step. We are often asked, why isn’t there a notification from the FCC? The short answer is they notified and involved the phone system manufacturers who in turn should notify resellers and installers. While the manufacturers do know, the word hasn’t reached the reseller and installer community as well as it could. This means the customers are still often uninformed.
Compliance
To comply with the Act, your phone system needs to include a “dispatchable location” when 911 is called. This starts with the street address of your building, and then as much additional information as possible to help identify the location of a 911 caller.
Put more formally… Dispatchable location information provided to the public safety answering point (PSAP) includes a valid civic address, plus other information such as building, floor, suite, or room number “necessary to adequately identify the location of the calling party.”
Here’s the most frequent question we get asked in every first meeting: Do I have to comply? The short answer is, yes, followed be a quick most likely.
If you have an old PBX that hasn’t been touched in five or more years, you may have an out. Most organizations’ IT teams or their phone vendor, will update the software on the phone system on a fairly regular basis. Bug fixes, security flaws that need to be addressed, and new features all drive these software updates.
Getting Started
So what do you do to know for sure? The easiest answer is a meeting with us and we’ll assess your situation, for free. While we can’t offer legal opinions, we can determine if your phone system can be exempted from a technical perspective.
What if you are subject to the new laws? The time to act is now. The FCC can levy $10,000 penalties, $500/day charges, and penal actions for noncompliance. Our 9Line software can help with compliance by integrating with your phone system to enable the features required by both Ray Baum’s Act and Kari’s Law.
Book a meeting with us today, and let’s help you get on the path to compliance.