In the event of an emergency, are you capable of receiving the emergency response from calling 911 that you normally expect when using a traditional phone line? In the United States as well as Canada, a 911 call placed from your telephone is routed to PSAP (Public Safety Answering Points). Your number and location are reported when this call is placed. Knowledge of the phone number allows the 911 dispatcher to return the call if necessary and the location is of obvious importance to route an emergency response team. But what happens when this same 911 call is placed over a VoIP line?

There have been reported incidents where existing 911 calls placed from VoIP don't get through to the primary PSAP and at times are routed elsewhere. The dispatcher also wasn