Emergency telephone numbers

Public telephone networks use emergency telephone numbers that provide the name, telephone number, and a location or address to a local Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). Some examples of emergency telephone numbers are Enhanced 911 (E911) in the United States, 112/E112 in the European Union, and 999 in multiple nations.

Conventional telephony systems, such as the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) and cellular telephone networks provide an address of record or an approximate location in relation to a cellular tower. In some cases of cellular telephony, Global Positioning System (GPS) location information is also sent. Currently, VoIP telephony does not support the verification of a location for emergency calls.

Some standards exist that support emergency calls through VoIP. These standards require an administrator to provide information when the VoIP device is defined in a system, such as managed IP telephones in Customer Interaction Center, or when an agent registers a VoIP telephony device to a call distribution server. Although no official international standards regarding the verification of a location for emergency calls through VoIP have yet been established, many have been proposed or are in development.Some third-party companies provide emergency call routing and location information though VoIP to the appropriate PSAP for enterprise systems and remote workers.

In Customer Interaction Center, you can enter emergency information when you define a managed IP telephone; however, if a remote agent uses that IP telephone to dial an emergency telephone number, Customer Interaction Center—depending on the configured dial plan—routes the call through a gateway that is most likely not in the same location as the remote agent or does not route the call at all. If an emergency call is allowed through the dial plan, the gateway routes the emergency call to the PSTN, which then relays the call to the PSAP that is local to that gateway. The result is that a remote agent could be connected to a PSAP that does not cover the area in which the remote agent made the call.

For remote agents, including those who use Interaction SIP Bridge, Genesys recommends one of the following solutions for supporting emergency calls through VoIP:

• Remote agents must use PSTN or cellular telephony devices to make emergency calls.

• Use a third-party E911 service provider to provide emergency call routing to a PSAP that services the location based on previously-submitted location information of the managed IP telephone.