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Provisioning Emergency Call Information (911)

Overview

  • The vast majority of the Avaya telephones in university offices rely on building electrical power and the university’s data network, and will not work during network or power outages. If you need more information about telephones that operate independently of building electricity, please contact Network Infrastructure and Services.
  • There is an address (room, building, and street) associated with each telephone. That address is provided to emergency responders and must be kept up to date. Moving or installing phones yourself can lead to incorrect information. To ensure accuracy, please contact Network Infrastructure and Services to place orders to install or move telephones.

Important Public Safety Information

The following information is provided as a reminder of your responsibilities for facilitating Virginia Tech’s compliance with the Commonwealth of Virginia Code as it relates to the provisioning of emergency call information.  Section 56-484.19 of the Code requires multiline telephone system providers, like Virginia Tech, to provide originating call location information to the public safety answering point (PSAP) for all emergency calls. 

Virginia Tech can maintain compliance with the Code by enabling emergency responders to readily locate all telephone stations--within an area of 7000 square feet or less--from which an emergency call may have been placed.

Additional information regarding specific Code requirements can be found using Virginia's Legislative Information System (LIS). 

Virginia Code § 56-484.23. Provision of emergency call information

 Virginia Code § 56-484.19. Definitions

 What you should know:

  • In order to dispatch emergency responders to the correct location on campus, emergency communications dispatchers utilize information from the PSAP’s location database to identify the street name and house/building number associated with a particular telephone number.
  • The PSAP database also provides more detailed location information to determine the Virginia Tech building name and room/suite identifiers used to ensure compliance with the Code’s square footage requirements.
  • Network Infrastructure and Services (NI&S) updates the PSAP database when telephones are added to the system or when the location of a phone changes.
  • All telephone move orders require an Interdepartmental Communications Request (ICR) to ensure the location records are updated in the PSAP database.   NI&S is developing the technology and processes to support departmentally managed telephone move requests in the future.
  • Telephone service customers are responsible for informing NI&S when room/suite identifiers in a building change as a result of renovation or remodeling activities.  Failure to notify NI&S about such changes could result in delayed emergency services because first responders are dispatched to the wrong location.
  • There is a dependency on local building power and network service for all voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone services.  Access to emergency services from VoIP telephones will not be available if there is a power failure or if the wired access service is unavailable in your building.  Depending on the extent of the emergency, cellular service may also be unavailable.  NI&S strongly recommends utilizing traditional analog and digital services in selected areas throughout the building to ensure uninterrupted access to emergency services in the event of a power or network failure.  Consult the Office of Emergency Management if you have questions regarding recommendations for the quantity and locations of analog and digital services.  Please contact an NI&S Customer Service specialist at 540-231-6460 for additional information about available analog and digital service offerings.
  • Emergency calling is only supported from the user’s fixed, primary, service location. Emergency calling through software (“softphone”) applications running on mobile computing devices is not supported at this time.  If you must use a softphone to report an emergency, be prepared to tell the dispatch operator your physical location.

 What you should do:

  • Notify NI&S of any changes to room/suite identifiers by sending email to the NI&S Customer Service group at cssnis@vt.edu
  • Contact NI&S to correct any telephone service location discrepancies by sending email to cssnis@vt.edu