Who answers my 911 call?
Zoom Phone routes emergency calls to designated emergency call takers. When you call 911 from a Kenyon College Zoom Phone, your call is routed to both Campus Safety and a public safety answering point, or PSAP, simultaneously. The PSAP in Kenyon College's region is the Knox County Sheriff's Office. Kenyon College Campus Safety will be able to listen to the call and begin the local response, while the PSAP dispatcher will handle the government response (local or county police, fire and rescue departments, etc.).What information is sent when I make a 911 call?
E911 automatically provides the PSAP with the phone number, cell phone's cell site and sector information, an address (if one can be provided), and the estimated latitude and longitude of the 911 caller. Kenyon College provides a street address to the PSAP when you make the call from Kenyon College's Zoom Phones based on your network information when you are on Kenyon's local network, like from a computer or desk phone connected to Ethernet, or from a cell phone connected to WiFi.How is my campus address determined during a 911 call?
Your address is determined using information about the local network that you are on. If you are connected to Kenyon's wired or wireless network, your device is assigned a special Internet address. Kenyon College can link this special address with the campus building that you are likely in and send this campus address as part of the E911 call.
Zoom Phone says it's using my GPS. What does that mean? Can other people see where I'm located?
Modern cell phones (since 2004) are GPS-capable, which means that there's a special GPS chip in the phone that will help provide some location information to a PSAP when that phone is used to call 911. This special GPS chip cannot be used to track the device and cannot be used to support GPS on the phone. This special GPS chip is only activated and becomes functional after calling 911 when the phone network is prompted to determine the phone's location, and the location of the phone is only sent as part of the E911 call. No one else can see where the phone is.Can I make a 911 call on my cell phone? How does Zoom Phone change things?
Your phone will first attempt the 911 call over wireless carrier networks, like AT&T, Verizon, TMobile, or Sprint. Your E911 location information as determined by the local network address (like the building address) still may be sent, even if the carrier network is used to place the call. If your wireless carrier network is not available, emergency calls will automatically route over an available WiFi network. Calls will still route to the PSAP and Kenyon College Campus Safety simultaneously.How accurate is GPS positioning? What's better: street addressing or GPS coordinates?
If you are outdoors, GPS positioning is generally capable of estimating your location within 150 meters or 500 feet. This can be impeded if your call is made indoors. If you are connected to Kenyon's network and use Zoom Phone to make the 911 call, street address as determined by your campus network address is used. Neither method is better or worse, and you should still always provide your physical location to the dispatcher if you can.Can I send a text message to 911 using my cell phone or Zoom Phone?
No. Knox County does NOT support text- or SMS-based 911 contact. To reach 911 services, you MUST place a voice call. (Text-to-911 service availability is dependent on the region.)