Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG), in cooperation with the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) and the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), establishes a workgroup to summarize the new Federal laws clarified and announced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), provide best practices and define technologies to improve compliance.

On August 1, 2019, the FCC adopted a Report and Order to implement the 911 direct dial and notification requirements of the Kari's Law Act of 2017 for multi-line telephone systems that are deployed in hotels, office buildings, schools and many other locations. The Report and Order also implements Section 506 of RAY BAUM's Act, which directed the FCC to consider rules to require the caller's location gets conveyed to the public safety answering point with all 911 calls made using multi-line telephone systems or other types of devices.

Kari's Law will become effective at the national (U.S.) level on February 16, 2020. Most existing hospitality multi-line telephone system manufacturers' technologies are already compliant with this law. Section 506 of RAY BAUM's Act will become effective at the national (U.S.) level on January 6, 2021 for fixed line and January 6, 2022 for non-fixed.

The 911 Location Communication Workgroup will work through three phases of a project to complete their objectives. The first phase of the project will be to work in cooperation with the AHLA to create a consistent and uniform summary of the requirements of the new laws in a format that is understandable to hoteliers and with a focus on the technological aspects of meeting the laws.

Phase two will be worked on in parallel and will produce a list of existing technologies and technological approaches that provide compliance with these laws, along with simple best practices for implementation. Phase three will be to work with NENA to describe future technologies under consideration or development that will ensure and improve compliance with the RAY BAUM's Act.

The 911 Location Communication Workgroup's kick-off call will be held on Friday, February 7 at 2:00 p.m. CST. HTNG members are encouraged to sign up for the workgroup below!

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About Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG)

Part of the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), HTNG the premier technology solutions association in the hospitality industry, HTNG serves members from hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, consultants, media and academic experts. HTNG's members participate in focused workgroups to bring to market open solution sets addressing specific business problems. HTNG fosters the selection and adoption of existing open standards and also develops new open standards to meet the needs of the global hospitality industry.

Currently more than 400 corporate and individual members from across this spectrum, including world leading hospitality companies and technology vendors, are active HTNG participants. HTNG's Board of Governors, consisting of 22 top IT leaders from hospitality companies around the world, itself has technology responsible for over 3 million guest rooms and world-leading venues. HTNG publishes workgroup proceedings, drafts and specifications for all HTNG members as soon as they are created, encouraging rapid and broad adoption. HTNG releases specifications into the public domain as soon as they are ratified by the workgroups.