E911 emergency address

Why every number needs a registered address, what the two 911 statuses mean, what it costs, and how to test it safely.

Federal law (Kari's Law and the RAY BAUM's Act) requires that a 911 call from your system reach the local emergency dispatcher with a real street address attached — not just your caller ID. Hey Quad handles the mechanics; you register the address.

When 911 may not work

Hey Quad is an internet phone service, and the FCC requires us to tell every customer when 911 on it may not work or may be limited. Read the full 911 Service Advisory. In short, a 911 call may fail, or reach a dispatcher without your correct address, if:

a phone is moved, or the softphone, desktop or mobile app is used away from its registered address;
your number is from a different area than where you are (a non-native number);
your internet connection is down or too slow;
the power is out at your location;
a new or changed address has not yet reached the 911 location database;
your service is suspended or cancelled;
your equipment, our network or our carrier fails.

Before your service starts, the account owner reads the advisory in Settings → Emergency and ticks "I have read and understand". Nobody else can do it for them, and the account can't go live without it. If we publish a new version, the owner is asked again.

911 labels. Every phone and device you use with Hey Quad needs a 911 warning label. Press Print 911 labels in Settings → Emergency (Avery 5160 / 8160 sheets) and put one on or near each phone. Phones we ship to you arrive labelled.

Why every number needs this

When someone dials 911, the carrier routes the call based on the caller ID presented, not on where the person is actually standing. If that caller ID isn't registered with a validated emergency address, the call goes to a national call center instead of your local police, fire, or ambulance dispatcher. Registering an address is what makes 911 route correctly.

Two statuses, not one

Emergency readiness on a number has two independent parts, shown separately in Settings → Emergency:

Address — pending, validated, or failed. This is whether the street address you entered has been checked against the carrier's records. An address can be validated without anything being live for 911 yet — it's only confirming the address itself is real and deliverable.
911 — not enabled, provisioning, active, or failed. This is whether a specific phone number is actually live as that address's emergency caller ID with the carrier. Only 911 enabled: active means the carrier has confirmed it — that's the status that matters for a real 911 call.

A location isn't ready for 911 until its address shows validated and it has a number showing 911 enabled: active.

One location, or several

Single location. Most small orgs have one address. Set it once in Settings → Emergency, assign it a phone number as its emergency caller ID (its ELIN), and every seat in the org uses it for 911 unless a specific device or extension is bound elsewhere.
Multiple locations. Add one location per site, each with its own address and its own ELIN. Bind a device or an extension to the location it physically sits at. Hey Quad resolves which address to use, in this order: the device's own binding, then the extension's binding, then the org's default location, then — if the org has only one location — that location automatically.

Each ELIN is a real phone number on your account, dedicated to representing that address to the 911 system. There's no separate charge for the ELIN itself: your seat price includes a Florida E911 fee of $0.40 per line, and if the ELIN is a number beyond the one included with your account, it's billed like any other extra number — $1.00 a month. See What is a seat for how the E911 fee appears on your invoice.

Register your address before you rely on a number

If a 911 call goes out on a number that isn't showing 911 enabled: active, the carrier still connects it — 911 is never blocked — but it routes to a national center instead of your local dispatcher, which costs real time in an emergency. Registering your address and confirming 911 enabled: active before you rely on a seat is the only way to avoid that.

Test my 911

Once a location shows 911 enabled: active, a Test my 911 button appears for it. It dials 933, the carrier's test line — never a real 911 call — and reads back the address on file so you can confirm it's correct. The button stays disabled until the ELIN is active, so there's no way to fire it against an unregistered number by accident.

Never dial 911 itself to test this. Use 933, or the button.

If your org gates outbound calls on E911 readiness

Some orgs turn on a stricter setting that blocks ordinary outbound calling from any seat whose location isn't 911-ready, to guarantee every seat is emergency-ready before it's used for anything. If an outbound call is being refused with a message about 911 registration, that's this setting — ask an admin to check Settings → Emergency, or register the seat's location. This gate never affects 911 or 933 themselves; those always go through regardless of any org setting.

PSAP callback

If a dispatcher needs to call back after a 911 call, they call the ELIN — that's the point of registering it as the address's caller ID. Each location has a callback destination (an extension) you choose in Settings → Emergency; a call to the ELIN rings that extension. Point it at a person who can actually answer and explain the situation, not a general queue or an IVR — a dispatcher calling back needs a human immediately.

Common gotchas

Address validated doesn't mean 911 works yet. Check for 911 enabled: active specifically before treating a seat as emergency-ready.
A location with no callback destination set rings your front desk by default — set one explicitly for anywhere reliably staffed.
Moving a location's ELIN to a different number takes it out of service until the new number shows active — don't do this right before you need it tested.

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