Kari’s Law and 911 Statutory Requirements Explained

A Primer on Kari’s Law

Kari’s Law was enacted after a tragic event at a hotel in Texas. The law’s namesake, Kari Hunt, was staying with her children in a hotel in Marshall, Texas in December 2013 when she was shot and killed by her estranged husband in the lobby of the hotel. During the altercation, Kari’s 9-year-old daughter tried to call the front desk for help but her call did not go through because, as the Radio Communication and Public Safety Act of 1990 required at the time, she had to dial "9" to reach the outside line. Her daughter then called her mother to retrieve her father in the front desk area . The 9-year-old was again unable to reach the front desk because she would have also had to dial "9" to get an outside line, and therefore had to call her mother, who then ran to the front desk and was able to get help — too late to save Kari’s life. Kari’s Law amends the Communications Act of 1934. Specifically, it requires all Multi-Line Telephone Systems (MLTS) to be configured to directly dial 911 without any need to first dial a prefix. MLTS includes most hotel, office and university phone systems, but also small business systems and phone systems in homes. The FCC issued an order on February 16, 2018, outlining the requirements of the new law and its implementation.

Kari’s Law Key Points

The most significant change brought about by Kari’s Law is the requirement that "notification components" must be included: a multifunction device (MFD) must be configured to allow an incoming call to be sent directly to the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) without the need to first dial a digit. Operators and managers of multi-line telephone systems (MLTS) – i.e., businesses and organizations that utilize telephone systems where multiple lines are serviced from one source – must configure the system to allow an incoming call to the PSAP without dialing a digit first. For example, if a caller dials 9-1-1 from their cell phone while on the business’ premises their call must go straight through without any need to dial a digit. There are also provisions that require devices that do not possess a "notification component" to notify environmental controls ["systems that control emergency conditions" (fire alarm systems, security systems, lighting systems, climate control systems, etc.)] when the notification of an emergency is received.
In addition to direct notification of the PSAP, the law requires that the PSAP must get all pertinent information related to the 911 call. Employers should be well-versed in what information, if any, will be provided by the PSAP. The law also requires that businesses and organizations provide callback location information to the PSAP. This requires, at minimum, that the callback location information include the street address and the "building specific location information." Of note, the law provides that the callback location information should include the "building specific location information," but it does not mandate that it be included. In the absence of a mandate, employers should individually assess whether the "building specific location" information is going to be included in the callback location information sent to the PSAP.

Significances of Direct Dial for 911

The easiest way, and vital method, for reaching the police and firefighters in the event of an emergency is to simply dial 911 on your phone, and not to enter codes on a keypad. The standard in the industry has been that dialing 9 first, sometimes with another 1, before getting the line for an outside line first, is required and then you have to enter the second code. This method can often times be very slow in an emergency. What if you have to enter 6 codes, and it takes you 90 seconds? That could be the difference between life and death.
Moving along, especially in a workplace organizational structure setting, an employee has gotten to his or her desk and they call the front desk to inform them of an emergency. However, now the employees at the front desk have to figure out whether or not the emergency is really necessary and then they have to decide whether to dial 911 for an ambulance or fire truck, and after they make the decision they have to then hang up the phone and call 911. This obviously adds time in an emergency that is necessary at that point and they don’t know they are in, literally, a life or death situation.
Therefore, direct dialing is a huge benefit to organizations. It also adds a different level of training because then our clients do not have to worry about whether someone remembers to call 911 or even knows how to call 911 before that is needed. This is a major issue in businesses where you have new employees and the telephone system is new. Similarly, problems exist when in the medical field where doctors and nurses are using patient phones to call a physician or another medical staff member on a telephone. That often requires dialing an outside line first or pressing a code or having to transfer a call. Those are all time sensitive capabilities that if not done correctly mandates a delay in someone’s treatment or ability to provide treatment to another person or individual.

Kari’s Law Requirements for Compliance

Businesses that are required to comply with the other parts of Kari’s law are subject to fines up to $10,000 per incident and may liable for individual lawsuits. However, while the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is permitted to impose its own fines through a process that allows for a maximum of 30 days from the time of detection to initiate the penalty, they are still working on creating a guide that will be used to help facilities with what might be deemed a "reasonable" period of time to comply. The FCC will consider each situation on a case-by-case basis, but this could involve as little as 30 to 60 days before they expect compliance. The Federal Government is currently expected to take until July 2018 to finalize rules and establish revenue penalties.
The requirements for businesses to comply with Kari’s law are:

End-user notification systems that allow users to directly dial 9-1-1 without any prefix, such as 9, pause 9, or 9-1-1
Alerting system that signals whenever a 9-1-1 call is emplaced from within the business
Send an automatic notification of the call to either only the closest 9-1-1 call center or the closest call center to the business
Maintain records of all 9-1-1 call placed from within the business and acknowledges their receipt.

Businesses have until July 6, 2018 to comply with all of these rules. Anyone else via the FCC or a state Board or Commission to set other deadlines to comply with the act over the next five years will only have the time that the FCC or Board or State Commission have allowed or set.

Kari’s Law Impact on Business

The new requirements imposed by Kari’s Law for direct dialing of 911 are likely to impact many businesses, particularly those that have large enterprises with multiple offices and locations. In larger networks, where there is a trunk group that serves numerous offices and extensions, the possibilities for conflicts arise when other local office equipment is installed and attempted to be used to make calls on the same group of trunks.
With the advent of cloud-based voice services, organizations will need to proactively discuss with their provider the capabilities of their phone applications to ensure compliance with the new regulatory choices. Organizations that have multiple telecommunications providers will need to meet with each of them individually to discuss strategies to achieve compliance.
Businesses will also need to consider the impact of the new regulations on their state-law mandates. While some states already require direct dial access to emergency services (e.g., 911) from all telephones, the new federal requirement will eliminate the confusion that sometimes arises between state and federal regulators regarding operation of Legacy systems. The formal regulatory requirement will eliminate enforcement uncertainty to ensure that customers can call 911 from any line.

Kari’s Law Non-Compliance Consequences

Failure to comply with Kari’s law and the RAY BAUM’S Act could result in substantial liability to end-users or service providers in private rights of action. In one of the only published decisions interpreting and applying these laws, a federal court recently denied a motion to dismiss a class action complaint for failure to comply with the KARI’s Act, because the plaintiff plausibly alleged that the defendant failed to comply with the statutory requirement to provide a "simple means" of directly dialing 911 without first dialing an additional number.
But private actions may not be the only costly consequence of a business’s or service provider’s failure to comply with the law. The penalties for willfully and knowingly failing to comply with the law are steep – up to $10,000 per violation for willful and knowing failure to comply with the law, and as much as $500,000 for repeated violations .
Businesses increasingly rely on remote workforces, mobile devices and bring-your-own-device policies to improve productivity, which are all not without pitfalls under these statutes. For example, several businesses have already asked the FCC whether the requirements apply to hybrid work environments. In a recent declaratory ruling, the FCC noted that it disfavors the use of free Internet calling apps that do not include 911 texting capability when used over Wi-Fi on Wi-Fi-only phones.
Fortunately for businesses and service providers that maintain basic E911 capabilities on their systems (including, for example and by way of analogy, facilities that allow users to call 911 using a network-based application available within a cloud-based system), there is a safe harbor for those that do so. An entity can avoid penalties for failing to ensure that the system meets the required E911 functionality if it makes a good faith effort to obtain compliance by no later than the deadline.

How to Become Kari’s Law Compliant

The Technical Requirements
In order to comply with the new requirements for on-premises systems, the relevant carriage service providers (CSPs) will need to update their systems to ensure correct delivery of PSAP call back numbers. In practice, this will involve a change to the manner by which CSPs receive location information from on-premises systems, followed by the implementation of a mapping procedure.
March – July 2019
Testing Phase: Industry consultation and testing period run, during which CSPs will have an opportunity to trial various mapping mechanisms to determine the most efficient way to process PSAP call-backs.
April – August 2019
Training Phase: Training of private service providers and site administrators to be conducted by relevant CSPs, covering the technical changes that will need to be made and the procedures to be followed by service providers and site administrators.
Start of September 2019
Implementation Date: Delivery of call-back numbers to ACCS commences. CSPs must deliver PSAP call-back numbers using one of the trialled and accepted methods.
Practical steps
Use of an automated solution such as those offered by Telstra, Nextiva and SnomPA can ensure compliance for all Australian businesses. Cloud-based systems offered by these three vendors are designed with the capability to store the registered location of a given extension or device in a directory, which is then mapped to a corresponding emergency service portal. Such a solution mitigates risk by ensuring that all emergency calls are registered against the appropriate location, so that the information can be easily accessed by the emergency authorities. Within on-premises PBX systems, the most effective means of securing compliance is to deploy automatic location routing, using either a Cloud-based solution or SIP/ISDN-based system which requires IP addresses to be registered against locations in order to be manually mapped to emergency numbers in the case of incorrect or missing address information.

Kari’s Law versus Other 911 Regulations

Compared to the two previously mentioned laws, Kari’s Law is much narrower in scope and enforcement. For example, whereas Ray Baum’s Act targets all information transmitted to a PSAP, the relevant language in the RAY BAUM’S Act (including Sec. 506, the location information and dispatchable address section) states its applicability is to matters of "The transmission of VoIP E911 calls." In contrast, Kari’s law is concerned with only the ability to directly dial 911 without needing to first dial 9 or a number analogous to 9 to access an outside line, and whether systems are properly configured to transmit 911 call back information (assuming a call back number is available). The RAY BAUM’S Act and Ray Baum’s section 506 impose requirements and potential penalties on service providers who fail to ensure that information concerning the location and callback number is promptly transmitted to a PSAP, but Kari’s Law implements obligations on users of non-English speaking equipment which do not involve any such transmission. (We note that some of the 911 reporting obligation provisions have both a provider and user focus). Furthermore, the two other laws target specific aspects of 911 and location information reporting. Other laws, such as the KAPS provision, focus on specific parts of how a call is delivered to 9-1-1, regardless of technologies involved.

Kari’s Law and the Future of 911 Emergency Laws

The FCC and Congress have focused on this and other issues related to 911 call completion, and the laws that are currently in place. In March 2018, the FCC issued a Report, Order, and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, calling for several new steps for "effective management of the E911 and NG911 networks and infrastructure, technological and operational capabilities, and consumer access to 911 services across the country" (see Report, Order, and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (referred to in this article as "FNPRM"), heading "In The Matter of Accelerating Wireless Broadband Deployment and Finding Ways To Compete Against the Mobile Broadband Market Incumbents," March 23, 2018) . The FNPRM directed industry stakeholders, including 911 services and equipment suppliers that both offer and support 911 call termination, and service providers that utilize 911 services, to respond to multiple questions regarding such items as: The FNPRM seeks comments on these issues, and others, to facilitate the further development and enhancement of 911 Network Reliability and Resiliency, and, as previously discussed, to promote improved 911 routing, call delivery, and call completion. The FNPRM is the most aggressive step by the FCC in years to update and enhance the 911 network and infrastructure, and to further develop and improve upon existing 911 services, capabilities, and enhanced 911 (E911) services. Accordingly, the future of 911 and the development of the E911 network and infrastructure will be shaped and developed in part by the results of the FNPRM, and the responses to the questions identified therein. What is abundantly clear is that while useful legislation like Kari’s Law expands the access to, and usage of, 911, technology, improvements, protocols, and updates are required to be able to support the increased accessibility and usage demands of users.