When calls to 911 are sent over AltiGen SIP Trunking with a transmitted caller ID that is not configured to have E911 service, the call will route to a generic 911 answering service. This will still work for emergency dispatch, however a significant fee will be assessed to the customer for each call to the generic 911 answering service, regardless of length of call or intent of call.  Because of this fact it is important to test that E911 has been configured properly on an AltiGen MaxCS server with AltiGen SIP trunking.  Even test calls to the generic 911 answering center will be assessed the fee for routing the call to the generic answering center, so the question arises, "How can E911 be confirmed to be configured correctly without incurring charges from testing?"

933

The phone number 933 is used on AltiGen SIP Trunks to route a call to an automated answering service for the purpose of testing E911 configuration. Calls to this automated system will read back the caller ID that was sent, and indicate if there is an address associated with the number, and if so, will also recite the address. Using this service will not only provide a method of testing E911 configuration to avoid fees, but also assure that actual emergency calls are routed appropriately.

Configuration

In order to make sure that the MaxCS server is properly configured to use the 933 test number, "933" must be added to the system's Emergency Numbers list on the Country Relevant tab of the MaxAdmin System Configuration window. The reason for this is two-fold:

• Normalized Dialing - This allows direct calls to the 911 service as "933" as opposed to needing to first dial a trunk or route access digit (i.e. "9933").
• Selection of transmitted caller ID - This lets the MaxCS system know that this is considered to be an "emergency" call, and thus it should use the E911 caller ID, rather than the normal caller ID that it would send for the call.

Additional Notes

• 911 is considered by default to be an emergency number on all systems where the country is set to "U.S.A. & Canada". There is no need to explicitly enter 911 to the list of emergency numbers.
• 1911 is not automatically defined as an emergency number, however calls that route over AltiGen SIP Trunks to a destination of 1911 will be sent to 911.  If 1911 is not defined here, then calls to 1911 would not have the E911 caller ID applied.  Be sure to add 1911 as an emergency number with AltiGen SIP Trunks.
• Once configured as an emergency number, calls to 933 will cause a notification call to be sent to any extensions that have the Activity Notification enabled for "When emergency number has been dialed". This setting can be seen on the notification tab of the extension configuration window.

See also

• AltiGen SIPTrunking E911 - Overview and Best practices