911 Hang ups

[dconstantino]

My clients can dial 911 or 9911 how can I prevent 911 hang ups. Users dialing LD dial 91NPA-NXX-XXXX and some times hit 1 twice matching the 911 Route Pattern and then they just hang up. Of cource the POPO show up and the call was false. Is there a doc to work around this.

[Brandon Buffin]

You can either remove the 911 route pattern requiring users to dial 9911 or remove the urgent priority flag requiring users to waith for the interdigit timeout for the call to complete. We chose to remove the 911 route pattern. The standard in the US is to dial 9 for an outside line in a business setting, so I don't feel requiring this for emergency calls poses a big risk.

Hope this helps. If so, please rate the post.

Brandon

[Tommer Catlin]

We just put a system and it was first time this company of about 60 people use "9" to get to the outside world. For whatever reason, they kept dialing 911 all the time... the local piggys were getting pretty upset over this. CDR in Callmanager was not tracking it because it was too short of call with the hangup. We eventually had to change them to "8" for an access number...

so if there is a doc out there on this for best practices.. I would love to see it. And if there is one for best advice in culture changes at company xyz.. that would be great also. (just jokin)

thanks

[dconstantino]

I will be talking to them about both option. The issue with taking away the 911 pattern that if an outsider comes in they may not know to dial 9 short of putting a lable on all 1100 phones that may not fly.

I think I will start with removing urgent priority I was thinking about doing that anyway. I may also take away 911 from the regular employees and force 9911 and just aloow 911 on lobby phones and common areas for guest.

[m-payne]

Greetings!

I am dealing with the same issue of users dialing 911. I removed the Urgent Priority flag on both my Pub and Sub and updated the route pattern. Calls are still hitting 911 as soon as dialed. Has this worked for anyone? Also, I did not reboot the CM's and am thinking this might be the reason the change did not take. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Mike

[thisisshanky]

Since 911 is a specific match, whether you click urgent priority or not does not matter. As soon as somebody dials it the call is sent out regardless of urgent priority flag.

Creating a delay can cause problems, where the person is having a real emergency, every second matters. Keeping inter digit timeout at such a low value as 5, also creates a problem with users trying to look up a number and if they dont dial it with in 5 seconds, they get a fast busy or the Annunciator message "your call cannot be completed as dialed".

I think the best solution here is to educate the user not to hangup the call. Send emails to everybody about how not to hang up the call when they realize that they accidentally called 911. Put stickers and posters at key locations helping employees remember not to hang up the call. If they are not understanding the penality the company has to pay for false 911 calls, you can enforce some money being cut off after 2 or 3 times, from their next pay check. One time you enforce this, people will start following the rules automatically.

Setting up only 9+911 is another option, but you may run into the risk of a person in a real emergency dial only 911 and not have the call go through.

HTH

Sankar.

[choss]

Please see my post under IP Phone Services for End Users > Survey: How many avoid 9 for outside dialing due to 911 calls for our solution

[jarsenault]

Here is what I have done for my customers. This work aroundd goes off the premises that most systems use 9 as an access coded. Also that most accidental calls to 911 are from users who intended to make a LD call but dial two 1's followed by the number they wish to call, thus dialing 911. Originally Call Manager would immediately match as soon as 911 was dialed. I added another route pattern of 911X. When someone dials 911 Call Manager continues to collect digits until the inter-digit timeout is reached (5 seconds). If no other digits are collected Call Manager will route the call to emergency services. If another digit is pressed after dialing 911 Call Manager immediately matches the 911X route pattern and returns an error message to the caller. So for example if some dials 9113, as soon as the users hits 3 Call manager matches the 911x route pattern and gives the user an error message.

[kraghavansag]

Hi Jarsen,

Nice idea. But, I have a couple of thoughts for this approach. Let me know if this is correct.

1. If we remove 911 route pattern and create 911X, as you said the CCM is gonna wait for the 4th digit. If the user dials fourth digit, the CCM sends the call to the gateway which does not send the call out.

2. If we remove 911 route pattern and create 911X, as you said the CCM is gonna wait for the 4th digit. If the user dials 911 and not the fourth digit, the inter-digit timeout expires and the CCM sends the call to the gateway which dials to 911.

Is this how the CCM will dialed digits as per your design?

[jarsenault]

sag,

That is not how I am doing it. If you remove 911 and only have 911x then if someone dials 911 CUCM will NOT match 911x and callers will NOT be able to dial 911.

What I have done is create a 911 route pattern (do NOT check "Urgent Priority") AS WELL AS a 911x route pattern. The 911 route pattern point to the locations Route List (Or Gateway) and the 911x route pattern point to a "dummy" or "null" gateway used to block calls. That way when someone dials 911 CUCM would match the 911 Route Pattern. It also matches the 911x route pattern so it waits until the interdigit timeout to route the call. This interdigit timeout is what prevents accidental 911 calls.

You can also set the 911x route pattern to "block" but you loose some CDR capabilities if you do this.

HTH

John

[kraghavansag]

John,

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation. This solved it all.. :-D