Illinois E-911 Compliance

Ameritech Locator ID Lite

There are several ways to comply with the Illinois E-911 law. Illinois requires businesses with more than 40,000 square feet to identify the source of the phone call. Also affects those with multiple buildings and a single phone system or Ameritech account. Customers will need some assistance in figuring out how to comply.

This document deals with the Locator ID Lite package offered by Ameritech. This is only applicable to Ameritech customers. Large PBX systems with 200 phones or more probably should consider the full E-911 package and an ISDN-PRI.

1. How many Locator ID’s do you need? A Locator ID is a 20 character description that arrives at the 911 center along with the phone call. The location information can be 2^nd Floor, or Warehouse etc. Whatever description would help emergency personnel identify the location of the caller. There are two possible solutions:

a. Segment phone lines on your phone system. If you only have a few lines, set up Locator ID’s for all the lines, set up Locator ID for each line and restrict access on a per phone basis. That way when a person grabs a phone line, they only have access to certain lines. The call will then go out on a line that indicates which building or 40,000 sq. ft area that they are located in.

b. In a larger system, install a new phone line per 40,000 sq ft or per building that is dialed only when a person dials 911. Telephone equipment vendors can typically restrict access to lines based on class of service assigned to groups of phones. You might be able to use an existing line that has infrequent use. Some newer systems will “barge-in” and grab a line for 911 calls to avoid this expense.

2. Ameritech charges. Setup costs for this are as follows:

First two years:

First record - $395

Additional records - $95

Renewal Fees for additional two years:

First record - $195

Additional records - $25

Change fee - $95 to change a record.

Note: These records reflect existing or new phone lines that are to be used primarily for 911 calls from a 40,000 square foot (or smaller) zone. In most cases, we can program your phone system to route calls out these lines as a first choice option. Obviously, this doesn’t work if this line is in use. We see two options:

3. Phone System. We will need to review your current phone system and make sure we can implement E-911 dialing with your current system and software release.

After that we can order your records from Ameritech for you. Or, if you would like to contact Ameritech yourself, that’s fine too.