911 Alerting without CER

[Brian Carscadden]

UCM 7.x cluster. Client wishes to alert a single phone in the event 911 is dialed, but they don't want/need the full-blown capabilities of CER. Anyone have a creative way to make this work?

Thanks in advance,

Brian

[jaschulz]

Hello Brian,

Here is one way I have found which we deployed at a client and they were happy.

Create DN 911:

a. Assign 911 as a DN on a phone and do a CFNA to outside 911. Reduce the no
answer timeout to a few seconds.

b. When someone calls 911 the phone rings briefly before the call goes to
911. Caller ID is captured in the missed call logs.

c. If you want a longer/louder ring time you could add the 911 DN as a
shared line appearance on an ATA. Then have ATA ring voltage trigger an
external bell with relay that rings for some minutes.

[Brian Carscadden]

Thanks for the reply. I had considered this, but it has certain pitfalls that make it undesirable - e.g., if the phone just happens to be answered it interrupts the 911 call to emergency services.

I saw a thread back from May on this. Some had interested leads, but others (pessmists) said flat out "no".

[brendand05]

Easy one.

Tell the client NO

Rather then try and fudge some workaround that may or may not work and could leave yourself and the company open to a negligence lawsuit

Pay the money for CER or live without this feature

[Brian Carscadden]

"Fudging" ... never heard of it. 

[riandcooper]

I have a customer (university) using IPcelerate to ring into the on campus operator. However this doesnt elude from the fact that it will still cost $$. I know they have changed licensing structure's to "package" up all the features, so it isnt as affordable as it was piece meal. Maybe you could tie another business intitative that IPcelerate provides?

[Brian Carscadden]

Yes, of course. I'm very familiar with CER, IPCelerate, and Berbee solutions - installed a lot of them. I particularly like Berbee. CER certainly gets a thumbs up. But ... I'm looking for those thinking outside the box. Sometimes there's a 'reasonable' way that doesn't seem like fudging and works just fine for scenarios that just don't seem to justify a whole separate server with what may appear like a super-bloated set of features for a small-scale need.