The Associated Press reported this tragic story about a 9-year-old girl in an East Texas hotel room who tried but failed to reach 911 to get help for her dying mother because she didn’t know she needed to dial 9 first.
“Papa,” Hank Hunt remembers the 9-year-old telling him later. “I tried, but it wouldn’t work.”
Hunt has launched an online petition to to require hotels and other businesses to eliminate dialing any numbers before the familiar 911 emergency services circuit. He has collected 390,000 signatures, and one advocacy group says Hunt has hit on an under-documented issue.
Indeed he has. This is a situation that could occur in businesses all across the country that have phone systems that require users to press 9 (or any digit) before dialing an outside number. Allworx addressed this issue in 2013 with the release of version 7.4 of their server software, which allows direct dialing of 911. Your Allworx server should be at least at this level in order to prevent a similar tragedy in your own business environment.
If this story motivates Allworx customers running older versions to update their software to the latest version then something good will have come from this tragedy. As an Allworx dealer we want to make sure that if there is an emergency in your business anyone can grab a handset, dial 911 and be connected to emergency services immediately.
The tragedy in East Texas is a situation that we at United Data Voice have dreaded might happen to one of our customers some day. Contact us to discuss upgrading your Allworx phone system to the latest software release.
...it's growing, and you want to know the system you buy today is expandable tomorrow. United Data Voice is your partner. Read more.
Could an upgrade of your business phone system save a life?
Hunt has launched an online petition to to require hotels and other businesses to eliminate dialing any numbers before the familiar 911 emergency services circuit. He has collected 390,000 signatures, and one advocacy group says Hunt has hit on an under-documented issue.
Indeed he has. This is a situation that could occur in businesses all across the country that have phone systems that require users to press 9 (or any digit) before dialing an outside number. Allworx addressed this issue in 2013 with the release of version 7.4 of their server software, which allows direct dialing of 911. Your Allworx server should be at least at this level in order to prevent a similar tragedy in your own business environment.
If this story motivates Allworx customers running older versions to update their software to the latest version then something good will have come from this tragedy. As an Allworx dealer we want to make sure that if there is an emergency in your business anyone can grab a handset, dial 911 and be connected to emergency services immediately.
The tragedy in East Texas is a situation that we at United Data Voice have dreaded might happen to one of our customers some day. Contact us to discuss upgrading your Allworx phone system to the latest software release.