VoIP Support: Who Ya Gonna Call?

When firefighters, police, and EMS respond to an emergency, they do so with the help of trained people in the 911 center who know how to get as much information as possible from the caller reporting the emergency. The more precise the location, description of the incident, and caller's contact information, the faster resources can get to the scene with the proper equipment and trained personnel. Lives can be saved or lost in the seconds it may take to find victims. As a volunteer firefighter and friend to many 911 dispatchers, I know how important it is for them to get as much information as possible. It's a very hard job, trying to get someone involved in a life-threatening event to calm down and tell what the street name is. You're probably wondering what the heck it has to do with OnSIP, other than the phone part. My wife tells me that every conversation I have, I find a way to interject "fire nonsense". Not completely true - I often like to talk about my daughter and the Yankees. (Wanna see some pictures of my kid dancing? And, I'm very happy Jeter is back.) But second, and more to the point, as one of the tech support first-responders here at Junction Networks, I know that when customers call us with problems, it's an emergency for them; they're losing business and they can't communicate with staff and customers. We're here to help; but when you call or submit an issue, we need as much information as possible. For example: On call with echo, is the echo on the caller or receiving end, and is it happening to all users or just a few? Are the users in the same place or different locations? Who is your internet service provider? What kind of router are you using? Your domain/user name or account ID is also very helpful. These are all questions we'll ask not because we enjoy interrogating you while you have a big problem, but because we need all the facts in order to fix the problem and get you on your way as quickly as possible. If there are dropped calls or persistent echos, in order to investigate we need to know the number called and the number called from, the date and time. We're like the SIP CSI. We just have to work on the whole putting the sunglasses on for dramatic effect thing. I keep poking my eye. We'll work hard to get you a resolution of your issue. We may tell you some technical mumbo-jumbo, might want to have your technical mumbo-jumbo translator handy. Or have them call us because we like to geek out with other geeks. We'll try to speak English most of the time, but we slip sometimes. The more information we have the better we can serve you. It's what we do!