The numbers
In Jamaica, 119 reaches the police and 110 reaches fire and ambulance. Both work from our phones.
Why an internet phone is different
A traditional line is a wire to a building. When someone dialled 999 from it, the address was the wire's address, and it could not be anywhere else.
An internet phone is not tied to a place. The same extension rings on a desk in New Kingston, a laptop in Mandeville and a mobile at the airport. That is the whole point of it — and it is also why the phone system has to be told where each handset physically is.
What we need from you, and why we keep asking
Every handset and every softphone user has a registered emergency address. When an emergency call is placed, that is the address that goes with it.
This means two unglamorous jobs matter more than they sound:
- Tell us when someone moves. A desk phone carried to a new branch still reports the old address until the record
is changed. It takes a minute to update and it is the single most important piece of housekeeping on a phone system.
- Check it before hurricane season, and when you reorganise. We include this in our pre-season checklist because
it is exactly the kind of record that quietly goes stale.
If someone works from home regularly, their registered address should be their home — not the office.
When the power or the internet is out
Be plain with your staff about this, because it is the one real limitation:
An internet phone needs power and a working connection. In a full outage it will not place an emergency call.
A mobile phone will, and a mobile can reach 119 and 110 even with no credit. That is the fallback, and everyone in the building should know it is the fallback. A UPS on the router and switch buys you a short power cut, not a hurricane.
Our own hurricane-season guide covers the rest of the preparation.
What to check this week
- Does every handset have the right address on it?
- Does everyone know 119 and 110, and that they should use a mobile if the power is out?
- Has anyone changed desk, branch or started working from home since the system went in?
None of that takes long. All of it matters on the one day it matters.