One of your salespeople is working from her kitchen table in Kaysville. She hears a crash in the garage, finds her husband on the floor, and dials 911 from the phone app on her laptop.
The dispatcher’s screen shows your Ogden office.
That is not a rare glitch. On a lot of cloud phone systems, that is simply what happens unless someone sets it up otherwise. And it is the part of Utah 911 phone system compliance that almost nobody checks after they switch.
Here is the short version. Utah has had its own 911 rules for business phone systems since 2017, and they ask for more than the federal rules do. Moving to a cloud phone system usually solves the old 911 dialing problem for you. It can also create a new 911 location problem, and that second one is where Utah is strict.
The good news is that this is easy to check and usually easy to fix. Most of it takes an afternoon.
Key Takeaways
- Kari’s Law requires direct 911 dialing with no prefix or access code, plus an on-site alert whenever someone dials 911.
- RAY BAUM’S Act requires every call to carry a dispatchable location: the street address plus suite, floor, or room.
- Utah’s own law has applied since 2017, three years ahead of the federal deadline, and asks for more detail than the federal rules alone.
- Utah requires that location information be updated within one business day of any office or phone system change. Almost no business tracks this.
- Responsibility falls on whoever installs and manages the system, not the carrier by itself. 1Wire handles Utah 911 phone system compliance for every customer we configure.
The Dialing Rule: Kari’s Law
Kari’s Law is federal. It took effect on February 16, 2020, and it covers any phone system manufactured, imported, first sold or leased, or installed after that date.
It is named for Kari Hunt, who was killed in a Texas motel room in 2013 while her nine-year-old daughter tried four times to call 911 and could not get through. The motel phone required dialing 9 first, and nobody had told her.
The law asks for two things.
First, anyone can pick up any phone and dial 911 directly. No 9 first. No prefix. No access code.
Second, when someone dials 911, your system tells someone on site. That means the front desk, the office manager, or whoever is going to meet the ambulance at the door and walk the crew to the right hallway.
If you moved to cloud phones in the last few years, you are probably in good shape on the first one. Platforms had to ship that way. The second one is a setting, and settings get missed. It is worth confirming that yours is turned on, and that the alert goes to a person who still works there. We have opened plenty of systems where the notification was pointed at an email address belonging to somebody who left in 2022.
The Location Rule: RAY BAUM’S Act
RAY BAUM’S Act covers the other half. Section 506 requires your system to send a dispatchable location with every 911 call.
A dispatchable location is more than a street address. It is the street address plus the detail a paramedic needs to actually find the person. Suite. Floor. Room. Building, if you have more than one.
Desk phones had to comply by January 6, 2021. Softphones, mobile apps, and anything used off site had until January 6, 2022.
Desk phones are the easy part. A phone bolted to a desk in Suite 210 stays in Suite 210. Softphones are where it gets interesting. The app on a laptop has no idea where the laptop is. It sends whatever address is on file for that user, and for most businesses that address is headquarters. That is how a call from Kaysville shows up in Ogden.
If most of your team is in the office every day, this may not affect you much. If you have people working from home, splitting time between two locations, or running unified communications across a mobile app, it is worth checking what address each of them would send.
Utah Asked for This First
Most articles on this topic stop at the federal rules. Utah passed its own law three years ahead of the federal deadline, and Utah asks for more.
Utah Code Title 69, Chapter 5 took effect in 2017. It applies to any owner or operator who, after July 1, 2017, upgraded an existing phone system or installed a new one.
Read that trigger again. Switching to cloud phones is a new install. There is no grandfather clause to fall back on, and the clock started here before it started federally. If you have replaced or expanded your phone system any time in the last nine years, this applies to you.
Utah wants your system to automatically send the 911 center all of this:
- The street address, and the business name where it applies
- The direct call-back number for that location
- Any office, unit, or building number
- The room number or its equivalent
- The building floor, if you are in a multi-story building
If your system sends a street address and nothing else, that is not enough here. A dispatcher looking at “1234 Main Street” for a four-story building with eleven tenants is starting a search, not a rescue.
The Rule Almost Nobody Knows About
Utah also requires you to keep that location information current. Not eventually. Within one business day of any change to the building or to the phone system.
Sublease the suite next door. Move accounting up to the second floor. Add fifteen phones for a new class of hires. Knock down a wall and turn two offices into a conference room. In each case the clock starts, and you have one business day.
We have never walked into a Utah business that had this on a checklist. It is the easiest thing on this page to fix and the easiest to forget again six months later. The fix is not technical. It is just deciding who owns it, and adding one line to whatever process you already use for office moves: tell the phone provider.
That line is the whole solution. If your phones are with us, telling us is enough. We keep the location records for our cloud phone customers, and we will make sure they match your building.
One more, for anyone still on an older system. If your phones are old enough to be exempt and still need a 9 to dial out, Utah wants a notice posted within five feet of every phone. Contrasting colors, at least 16-point bold, listing how to reach 911 along with the street address, the unit, and the room. Go look at the phone in your break room. If there is no sign next to it and you still dial 9, that is a gap worth closing. Our page on traditional phone systems covers what your options look like when you are ready to move off it.
Who Is Actually on the Hook
The rules land on whoever installs, manages, and operates the phone system. Not the carrier by itself.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. With a large national provider, you get a portal, a login, and a page of address fields. Keeping those fields correct is quietly your job, and nobody mentions it until something goes wrong.
We think that is backwards. Setting up 911 correctly is our work, not yours. When you switch to 1Wire, we configure the alerts, we set the location detail for every desk and every remote user, we test it, and we keep it current as your office changes. You should not need to know what a dispatchable location is. You should just be able to trust that 911 works.
If you are weighing providers right now, this belongs on your list. Our post on 12 questions to ask before switching business phone providers in Utah covers the rest of them, and a hosted PBX done properly handles all of this out of the gate.
Five Things You Can Check This Afternoon
You do not need an IT background for any of these.
- Make a test call. Pick up a desk phone, dial 911, and tell the dispatcher right away that you are testing your phone system. Ask what address and suite they see. Do it midmorning on a weekday, not during a storm or a holiday weekend.
- Check the alert. Did anyone in the building get a notification? Find out who is on that list and whether that person still works there.
- Ask about your remote people. What address does the app send when someone dials 911 from home? If nobody knows, that is your answer.
- Check floor and suite. If you are in a multi-story or multi-building space, confirm the record includes the floor and the building, not just the street.
- Check the date. When was your location information last updated? Compare that to the last time anyone moved desks.
If all five come back clean, you are in better shape than most. If two or three do not, you are in the same spot as nearly every business we walk into, and it is a short conversation to sort out.
We Will Check Your Utah 911 Phone System Compliance, Free
We will place the test call, confirm the alert fires, confirm what the dispatcher sees, and send you a one-page record of the test with the date, the extension, the device, the location that was transmitted, and the result. If something is off, we will tell you exactly what it is and what it takes to fix it.
It takes about fifteen minutes. There is no cost and no obligation.
Keep that page. If anyone ever asks whether you checked, that is your answer.
Running a business in Utah is hard enough. Whether 911 works should not be one of the things you wonder about. Book a time and we will take care of it.
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Frequently Asked Questions
When did Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act take effect?
Kari’s Law took effect February 16, 2020, and applies to phone systems manufactured, sold, or installed after that date. RAY BAUM’S Act required desk phones to send a dispatchable location by January 6, 2021, and extended that requirement to softphones and mobile apps by January 6, 2022.
What is a dispatchable location?
It is more than a street address. It is the address plus the detail a paramedic needs to find you: suite, floor, room, or building, when applicable.
Does Utah’s 911 law apply to my business if I already have a phone system?
Yes, if you have upgraded, expanded, or newly installed a phone system since July 1, 2017. Switching to a cloud phone system counts as a new install, so there is no grandfather clause.
How often do I need to update my location information with Utah’s law?
Within one business day of any change to your office or phone system, including moves, new phones, or reconfigured space.
Does 1Wire handle Utah 911 phone system compliance for me?
Yes. We configure the alerts, set location detail for every desk and remote user, test the setup, and keep it current as your office changes. Book a time for a free check of your current system.
