April 2022: Emergency services update for US and Canada BYOC
To better serve our Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC) customers, starting June 19, 2022 Zoom will become the default carrier for emergency calls placed from US & Canada BYOC phone numbers. This means that while regular day-to-day calls will continue to be handled by your carrier, emergency calls will be handled by Zoom.
This article covers:
Why are we making this change?
We are making this change for several important reasons:
- When Zoom is the emergency call carrier for US & Canada numbers, user or admin initiated changes to emergency addresses take effect automatically and within a few moments. This helps ensure that, should your users move from one location to another and make corresponding address updates, the correct address is communicated to public safety responders should they make an emergency call. When a BYOC carrier is used, the zoom phone administrator must track & manually update address changes with your carrier.
- When Zoom is the emergency call carrier, an Emergency Location Identification Number (ELIN) does NOT need to be supplied for each Personal Location or Company Location in the United States or Canada. This greatly simplifies the process and expense of maintaining your Nomadic Emergency Services deployment. When a BYOC carrier is used, the Zoom Phone administrator must procure, assign, and maintain address changes for phone numbers (ELINs) that must be assigned to each company or personal location.
Are there billing charges as a result of this change?
Zoom provides emergency calling services at no charge, therefore you will not see any billing changes from Zoom as result of this change. Please note that this does not mean that your BYOC carrier will stop charging you for emergency services, as your carrier is still responsible for local taxes & fees associated with your phone numbers, including emergency services.
What is the timeline for this change?
- In Zoom’s April 17, 2022 release, new customers utilizing BYOC will automatically use Zoom as the emergency carrier for calls placed from US/CA BYOC numbers. Also in the April release, existing BYOC customers will see an announcement within the Zoom admin portal describing the pending change to use Zoom by default for emergency calls placed from US & Canada BYOC numbers. At that time, customers can either opt-in immediately, contact Zoom to be exempted from this change, or can simply wait for the change to take effect automatically in May. To be exempted from the change, please reach out to our Support team and request to have the option Enable to choose target carrier for Emergency Calls placed by BYOC Numbers be enabled for your account.
- In Zoom’s May release, currently targeted for 22 May 2022, Zoom will automatically become the carrier for emergency calls placed from US & Canada BYOC numbers for all customers that have not opted-out of this change.
How will this change affect my Zoom Phone web portal settings?
Account owners and admins will see the following change to Zoom Phone settings once the account has opted in to the change or after the May release.
If you’re configuring or viewing emergency call routing settings and you enable routing to Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), the following setting will state ZOOM as the carrier and can’t be changed:
-
Target Carrier for routing emergency calls placed by BYOC numbers
- For United States and Canada BYOC Numbers: ZOOM