House subcommittee voices support for Kari’s Law bill that seeks direct dialing for 911 nationwide

Hunt told the subcommittee that implementing such changes to phone systems would be simple and involve minimal costs.

Officials and advocates for the law disagreed upon the need for location-based technology that would let PSAP call-takers and first responders know where exactly in a building a 911 call was being placed.

Rep. Eshoo voiced her concern that the law didn’t include provisions for such technology to be implemented, Hunt said that, given the number of telephones a building could have, implementing such technology was an unnecessary cost for the onsite notification for which Kari’s Law provides.

“In order to have a dispatchable phone number, you have to have [a specific location] for every phone in every building that will tell you the room number, the phone number and such,” Hunt said in his recorded testimony during the subcommittee hearing. “Whereas those phone numbers aren’t bought; they are leased.”

Souder expressed his approval of Kari’s Law, but said that location technology was an important consideration for it.

“My opinion very definitely is that Kari’s Law is very well written, but it has to be tied with the location that the call is coming from,” Souder said during the hearing. 

A notable advocate of Kari’s Law is Federal Communications Commissioner Ajit Pai, and many businesses are also starting to express approval of Kari’s Law’s provisions.

According to a statement written by Pai, 100% of hotels owned or directly managed by Carlson, Hyatt, InterContinental, La Quinta, Marriott, Motel 6, Starwood and Wyndham now allow direct 911 dialing, with 99% of Hilton’s owned or directly managed properties allowing it, too. Pai’s report states that, in the beginning of 2014, none of the U.S.’s largest hotel chains had brand standards allowing for direct dialing of 911.

Pai’s report also stated that MLTS vendors including Shoretel, Windstream, NEC and Vertical Communications reported that “they had or were making direct 911 calling the default setting in all of their MLTS products.”

“People want this law,” Hunt said during the hearing. “People will be greedy and may try to make a buck off it. But it needs to be done; it needs to be taken care of.”