“Being able to use the phone to get help in an emergency is one of the most important benefits of modern communications,” explained ACIF chief executive officer, Anne Hurley.
“Because people’s lives may be at stake, it’s absolutely critical that VoIP and Internet telephony service providers follow the steps laid out in the fact sheet. In doing so, they will make emergency calls over the Internet a much safer option for their customers.”

Emergency call centres in Australia normally refer to the incoming calling number and the registered address of the phone service when transferring callers to the appropriate emergency service. The ACIF solution is for call centres to be alerted when the call is coming in over the Internet so that they can verbally confirm the physical source of the call.

This “trigger” can be in the form of certain codes and call identifiers that alert the operator a caller is using a VoIP or Internet telephony service. It is the obligation of service providers to ensure that calls on their network carry those special codes and identifiers.

Service providers also need to advise the Integrated Public Number Database of certain information about their services that can further assist the 000/106 call centres in connecting calls correctly, says ACIF

The fact sheet, entitled “Access to emergency services for users of VoIP and Internet Telephony”, can be viewed and downloaded from the ACIF website.

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