Twilio's Emergency Calling enables emergency call routing to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Ireland, France, Germany, and Austria.
In the US and CA, Twilio supports both Enhanced 911 (E911) as well as Basic 911.
E911 calls are routed to the PSAP serving the address associated with the phone number that made the call. The call automatically includes the caller's Twilio number and corresponding address information to the 911 dispatcher answering the call.
Basic 911 calls are routed to the designated PSAP serving the address associated with the phone number that made the call. With Basic 911, the dispatcher answering the phone will not have access to the customer's telephone number or address information unless the caller provides such information verbally during the call.
Certain Twilio numbers will not have access to either Basic 911 or E911 services. In that case, 911 calls will be routed to a national emergency call center. A trained agent at the emergency call center will ask for the caller's name, telephone number, and location. They will then transfer the caller to the appropriate local PSAP or otherwise determine the best way to provide emergency services to the caller.
In the US and Canada, when a 911 call is placed from a phone number without a registered emergency address, Twilio will charge a $75 fee per 911 call for the call to be delivered to a national emergency location center. To avoid this charge, associate a validated emergency address with your phone numbers. Associating an emergency address with a phone number has a cost of $0.75 per phone number per month.
In the UK, Twilio supports both the 999 and 112 emergency numbers. If the phone number has a registered emergency address, emergency calls are routed to the PSAP serving the address associated with the phone number that made the call. When the emergency call is made, the corresponding address information and caller's number are automatically provided to the emergency dispatcher answering the call.
If this is your first time using emergency calling, you will need to add an address to your account. This address represents the physical address that will be used for emergency calling, and may be used to direct police, fire, medical, and other emergency response resources. In the US and CA, the address must be recognized by the Master Street Address Guide (MSAG) database. Each address created may be used for any phone number that is valid for emergency calling.
You can configure Emergency Calling with Programmable Voice SIP Interfaces in the Console as outlined below, or via the API.
We provide two different approaches. The first is to configure emergency calling on individual phone numbers. For example, if you want each individual agent or user to have their own callback phone number for emergency services, configure their individual SIP Phones with the appropriate phone numbers.
The second approach configures a single emergency callback phone number for your entire SIP Domain. Use this approach if you want to have emergency calling for a building or store using one number.
You must configure the Twilio phone number that you would like to use for emergency calling with a valid webhook URL. From the Console's Phone Numbers section, select the number you wish to use. Under Voice & Fax > A Call Comes In, select Webhook from the pop-up and enter your URL in the text field. This field cannot be left blank or be left as the Twilio demo URL.
In the US, an MSAG address will often differ from the equivalent US Postal Service address because the MSAG uses the community name (township, city, and county) from which the closest responding PSAP will come.
When asked, enter your address then click Save & Continue. If your address can't be validated, you will be asked to select one of a selection of suggested alternatives. The address your provide will then be associated with the Twilio phone number(s) you select.
If you need any assistance with address validation, contact our support team.
Next, register your phone number(s) with your SIP Domain. Each SIP Phone you are registering should be configured to send the assigned Twilio emergency calling number in the call's From header. Learn more about SIP Registration.
Emergency calls will only be routed when numbers enabled for emergency calling are used as the Caller ID (via the SIP From: header). Emergency calls made from any other number will be rejected.
You configure emergency calling for Programmable Voice SIP Interface on the phone number's configuration page.
Once you have enabled emergency calling for your SIP Domain, you can set an Emergency Caller ID for that SIP Domain. Do so if you would like to provide a single phone number to emergency services as a callback number. The Emergency Caller ID will be used to send as the From: in the SIP header when making a call to emergency services. You will only be able to select a Twilio phone number which has a registered emergency address as your Emergency Caller ID. Be sure to select a number from the country in which you would like to be able to place emergency calls. Do this on the SIP Domain configuration page.
You must ensure that:
From: header).If you want to check that your communications infrastructure is properly configured for emergency calling, dial 933. You will then be connected to an automated system that will read back the Twilio phone number that you're calling from, along with the address associated with that number.
You may need to add 933 to your dial plan in order for the call to be made.
Request-URI must be formatted as follows: sip:911@<CompanyName>.sip.us1.twilio.com, or sip:933@<CompanyName>.sip.us1.twilio.com for an emergency test call.From header.When an emergency call is made, Twilio will ignore the webhook and route directly to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP).
You may place a live emergency test call to verify the information that the emergency responder receives. This must be done sparingly. Some localities require you to schedule emergency test calls in advance and will charge penalties otherwise. You should check with your local authorities before placing any unscheduled emergency call tests.
To make a live emergency test call, follow this script:
From: header. This means it must:
From: header for the emergency call and must include the following header: From: sip:+1NPANXXYYYY@<CompanyName>.sip.us1.twilio.com where 1NPANXXYYYY has to be an emergency enabled Twilio phone number that is associated with the SIP Domain used for this call.Request-URI must be formatted as follows: sip:911@<CompanyName>.sip.us1.twilio.com, or sip:933@<CompanyName>.sip.us1.twilio.com for an emergency test call.If for any reason there is an address mismatch, file a support ticket.