| What is the 911 Service Fee? |
 |
A setup fee of $1.50 and a monthly fee of $1.50 apply to each Callcentric account requiring 911 service.
Th $1.50 monthly fee is included in the costs for the following outgoing services:
North America Basic
North America 500
North America 1000
North America 2500
North America Residential
World Select Residential
If you added one of the above outgoing plans the 911 fee would be included in the monthly price for the selected outgoing plan.
The $1.50 fee is NOT included in the following services:
Pay Per Call outgoing service
Any incoming service
Under these products you WILL be billed for 911 separately, at $1.50/month plus a one time $1.50 setup fee, if you state that your are in the US or Canada. |
| RETURN TO TOP |
| Where is 911 service available? |
|
| Callcentric provides 911 service across the 50 states in the US, Puerto Rico, as well as in all provinces of Canada. Callcentric does not provide 911 or any other type of emergency dialing service in other countries. |
| RETURN TO TOP |
| Do I need to have 911? |
|
| If you are located in the United States or Canada and have purchased a rate plan for outbound calling, or a phone number to receive calls we must provide you with 911 service as per FCC regulations in the US, and CRTC regulations in Canada. |
| RETURN TO TOP |
| When will my 911 service be activated? |
|
| 911 service is typically activated in less than 1 hour if provisioning is successful. You will receive an email once your 911 service has finished provisioning which will indicate if it has been successfully activated. Please note: that until you receive notification via email that your service is successfully activated you will NOT be able to place calls to 911. |
| RETURN TO TOP |
| What can cause 911 provisioning to fail? |
|
Many things can cause the provisioning of your 911 service to fail; the most common is an address issue. Should your 911 provisioning fail a Callcentric representative will be in touch with you to discuss the specific issue.
Please note: You will not be able to reach 911 until 911 has successfully been provisioned. |
| RETURN TO TOP |
| Should I test calling 911? |
|
Ideally you do not need to test 911, and we recommend not dialing 911 unless it is an emergency. If you have received an email stating that your 911 service has been activated, then 911 will work should you ever need it.
NOTE: Testing 911 when there is not an emergency can be punishable by law in certain states. We advise you check your local and state laws for more information. If you do choose to test 911, you must immediately inform the emergency response personnel that it is not an emergency and that you are testing your 911 service to make sure it's working.
There are other methods of testing 911 without actually dialing 911. These are shown below:
- Dialing 933. 933 provides the ability to receive the exact information that would be delivered to 911 operators when you dial 911. 933 is the best way to make sure that your information was submitted properly and is an entirely automated process.
- Dialing your local PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) through their local numbers. You may find these numbers through your local phonebook or city/state registry. If you do dial these numbers please make sure to indicate that your call is a test, as you will be occupying the time of individuals who provide public safety services.
If you have concerns about 911, not answered in any of the other 911 FAQs, then please open a trouble ticket on your account. |
| RETURN TO TOP |
| What happens if my service cannot be re-billed? |
|
| Callcentric provides 911 service to all customers for a minimum of 20 days after services have failed to be re-billed or cancelled. You will receive a warning notification when your 911 service has been disconnected due to cancellation of services or failure to re-bill. Once you have received a notification that 911 service is no longer active on your account you will not be able to place calls to 911 any longer. |
| RETURN TO TOP |
| Does Callcentric support European / International emergency numbers? |
|
| No. Callcentric does not support emergency dialing to numbers such as 100, 101, 102, 112, 999, or other emergency dialing. We recommend that you keep a basic traditional phone line or cell phone available to make emergency calls; and that you label all phones/computers connected to the Callcentric service as not supporting the local emergency number dialing. |
| RETURN TO TOP |
| I accidentally said I was in the USA or Canada, now I'm asked for a 911 address; what do I do? |
|
If you answered 'Yes' to the "Are you using our services from within the US or Canada?" question you will only have two (2) choices if you want to add paid services to your account:
1 - You can provide a valid US/Canada address so that your 911 services can be provisioned. Note that you will be charged a 911 setup and monthly fee. These 911 fees are non-refundable as they go directly to our 911 service provider.
*Please note that you may always state that you are outside the US or Canada, if you indeed are, after 911 has been provisioned.
2 - You can simply open another account and answer 'No' to the "Are you using our services from within the US or Canada?" question.
We cannot modify any information on your account in relation to 911 service once you have answered the question above. |
| RETURN TO TOP |
| Where will my 911 call be sent to? |
|
After 911 service has been provisioned on your account, a call to 911 will route as follows:
In the USA:
911 calls will be sent to the local 911 Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) for your locality. In rare cases if your 911 call cannot be routed to the local PSAP due to problem validating your address, or due to a connection failure, your 911 call will be re-routed automatically to a national Emergency Call Response Center (ECRC).
In Canada:
Your call is sent to a national Emergency Call Response Center (ECRC). The call centre operator will confirm your location information and then transfer your 911 call to the local emergency response centre nearest your location. You should be prepared to confirm your address and call-back number with the operator. |
| RETURN TO TOP |
| Can I configure multiple 911/E911 addresses on a single account that has multiple extensions/sub-accounts? |
|
If you wish to have more than one 911 address on your Callcentric account then unfortunately this is not possible. There is only one 911 address configurable per account.
If you need each account to have it's own address then you will want to open a Callcentric account for each unique 911 address.
You may update your current address at any time by logging into your account and clicking on the Change your 911 address by clicking here link. This will allow you to enter a new US or Canadian address for use with 911.
If you still have further questions on this topic please contact us for further assistance. |
| RETURN TO TOP |
| How does Callcentric Provision 911 Service? |
|
We do not provision 911 on any Phone Number purchased via our Service(or Number acquired from any other Provider). We send out a hidden number during a 911 call. And this number will be assigned to your account when 911 service is first activated. It will tied to your Name and Address.
The reason we do this is because a large portion of our customers have multiple DID's on their account and in general people are switching products around, etc. this way you have one number that is always used for 911 on your account regardless of the other products that you have, so if you want to move the DID to another account of yours then it won't affect your 911 service, note that this also saves money because otherwise we would have to re-provision your 911 any time you made such a change. Another example is if you are forwarding your DID to another location and someone at your house has an emergency and uses your Callcentric account to call 911 if the emergency response center needs to call you back then they call back the DID that is hidden and therefore will always ring where your Device or Softphone is physically registered.
Another reason that we implement 911 in this way is because we have a large number of clients who do not even have DIDs(or phone numbers) on their accounts, if they call 911 then 911 needs a number to be able to reach them at, this way we have one central and simple way of implementing 911, the least complicated the better and also that way there is less room for error so that 911 should always work.
So, essentially think of your account being mapped to a hidden phone number, internally, when a 911 call is placed. And if the Emergency Center ever needs to call you back, the operator will know which number to call. The call will be routed to the SIP Client(Hardware/Software) that placed the call.
You may find out what your 911 Phone Number is, by dialing 933 from your Callcentric SIP Client. This will only work if you have 911 activated on your Account. |
| RETURN TO TOP |
| Where can I learn more about Ray Baum's Act & Kari's Law? |
|
On 1/6/2022 new 911 Emergency Service Regulations go into effect (specifically Ray Baum's Act - Section 506), which are particularly relevant to businesses operating in multiple locations, within large multi-floored office buildings, etc.
While we encourage you to read more about these changes and contact the appropriate advisors where/if necessary, the key purpose of Section 506 of Ray Baum's Act is to improve the quality of information that is sent to public safety operators when an emergency call is made to 911.
Currently our service limits accounts to only being able to provision 1 E911 address at a time. When a call is placed to either "911" or "933" (address verification line) an email with the details of the call are automatically sent to the addresses on-file for an account.
Our team is aggressively working on enhancements to our 911 service which will increase the amount of unique addresses that can be provisioned to a single account. We expect to have this functionality available in the near future and will be making a formal announcement once it is available.
In the interim, if you need to provision additional 911 locations, you can do so by opening secondary accounts and ordering our "a la carte" 911 Service which is $1.50 per month for each respective location. Below are simplified instructions detailing how to proceed. If you have any questions or need assistance, please open a support ticket on your account and our team will be happy to assist.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR CREATING A NEW ACCOUNT and ACTIVATING OUR "A LA CARTE" 911 Service
Step 1) Create a new account by completing the SIGN-UP FORM here
Step 2) Complete the activation of your account by clicking the verification link sent to you by our automated systems
Step 3) Order our PAY-PER CALL OUTBOUND PLAN. During the check-out process you will be prompted to activate our "A LA CARTE" 911 Service
Step 4) Update the "dial plans" (for any endpoints that you are activating new 911 services for) to route "911" and "933" calls using the new account you created in the prior steps |
| RETURN TO TOP |
|
