Dialing 911 on Your MS Teams Soft Phone - University of Houston
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Dialing 911 on Your MS Teams Soft Phone

Your MS Teams hard phone and the soft phone on your computer offer an amazing amount of flexibility. One of the most powerful features of MS Teams is the ability to make calls from any location through the internet via your laptop computer. Unfortunately, the technology of the Emergency 911 system has not kept pace with MS Teams technology, so even though you can place work calls from home, hotels, or even a cybercafé, the 911 system will recognize the call as being placed from your office. This problem is not unique to MS Teams. It affects MS Teams, Avaya, Cisco, and other IP Telephony service providers.

Please remember, if you place a 911 call using your MS Teams soft phone (the MS Teams client), the 911 system will connect to the Houston Emergency Services Center and dispatch responders to your office location that is associated with your phone number. If you must place a 911 call from an off‐campus location using MS Teams, you must specifically notify the first responder of your actual location. When possible, it would be preferable in those situations to use a local phone or a cellular phone for 911 calls.