High-performing companies have many priorities to think about: research, innovation, customer satisfaction, revenue. But chief among them is protecting their number one most important asset: their workers.
At RingCentral, we know that keeping your employees safe is top-of-mind—especially as teams become increasingly remote and distributed. We also know that your company wants to stay compliant with all the safety regulations that apply to your industry.
Our product, RingCentral MVP, is fully compliant with RAY BAUM’s Act. Here’s what that means for you:
What is RAY BAUM’s Act?
RAY BAUM’s Act is a new FCC-regulated consumer protection that Congress passed in an effort to improve public safety in the event of an emergency. The act requires IP-based voice providers to enable callers to update their location in real time and transmit that location to emergency responders if the caller dials 911.
As a result of RAY BAUM’s Act, 911 response centers will receive the caller’s current location so they know where to send help. This data helps modernize public safety and saves first responders time in the event of an emergency.
RingCentral’s approach to RAY BAUM’s Act
At RingCentral, we’ve always been committed to the safety of our customers and their employees.
To meet our compliance with RAY BAUM’s Act and deliver an exceptional user experience, we previously released an Enhanced Nomadic 911 solution for U.S and Canadian customers and previously announced our compliance with Kari’s Law for our U.S. customers. These were important steps in ensuring the physical safety of our customers and their people.
As a continuation of those efforts, RingCentral now supports location awareness via Enhanced Nomadic 911 for all U.S. customers in compliance with RAY BAUM’s Act.
What is RingCentral location awareness?
Location awareness allows RingCentral customers and their employees to maintain their safety when traveling to new locations.
When employees move to new locations using their laptops, the RingCentral MVP app will prompt them to confirm their new location address and remember those locations going forward.
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As a result, if a user calls 911, the closest emergency response call center will automatically receive their location and pass that to first responders.
Here’s a quick overview of how RingCentral makes it easy for companies, IT teams, and employees to stay safe and compliant with RAY BAUM’s Act:
- IT admins can add up to 70,000 predefined networks and locations, such as corporate HQs, branch locations, and home offices for their employees. This saves time and reduces the number of prompts users receive on the desktop app when at those locations.
- End users can add up to 20 of their own personal and frequent locations to reduce the number of prompts they receive when they work from these locations.
- End users will receive prompts within the RingCentral app when they move to a new location.
- RingCentral will continue to route emergency calls made on the MVP mobile app to the native dialer, and the call will be handled by your cellular service provider.
How does location awareness work?
Location awareness works based on endpoints interacting with network elements that have known locations—for example, Wi-Fi access points and IP address ranges.
When a user connects to a new internet network, the RingCentral app will prompt them to enter their current location, such as the address of their home office.
Our intention is to have these changes to the app experience feel as seamless and easy-to-use as possible without disrupting day-to-day activities.
RingCentral’s commitment to privacy
Our compliance with RAY BAUM’s Act is just one of several safety and security features available in RingCentral MVP. We’re committed to keeping our customers safe—and compliant with the latest state, local, and federal regulations.
In addition, we take the privacy of our customers very seriously and don’t track users’ locations. We provide a user’s location information to emergency service responders only if a user dials emergency services. In fact, not even admins can access personal locations.
Location awareness will be available to all RingCentral users in the coming months. Keep an eye out for more information, and feel free to contact us with any questions.
Originally published Feb 21, 2022, updated Feb 25, 2022