988 is a three-digit code that offers a new way for callers in the USA to reach the Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a government-mandated service codified by The National Suicide Hotline Designation Act of 2020. This act directed multiple federal organizations and industry providers to work together to create a simpler hotline phone number.
Why not 911?
Your E911 providers dispatch local first responders, but they are not specifically trained on suicide prevention. The new 988 number routes callers directly to the proper agency, without needing for the call to be transferred.
When your VoIP users dial 988, the call must be routed to one of 170 crisis centers that make up the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the US. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required US telecom providers (including VoIP providers) to ensure their networks are capable of directing 988 calls to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline toll-free number by July 16, 2022. Your legal advisor can provide more details.
According to the FCC:
“We adopt our proposal to require all covered providers to route 988 calls to 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). In the Notice, we explained that routing 988 calls to the existing toll free number for the Lifeline was likely to ‘provide the most efficient means to establish 988 as a national suicide prevention hotline.’ The record overwhelmingly supports this conclusion.”
But what does this mean for your VoIP business?
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Telinta provides you with cloud-based solutions to help you make the configurations you need as part of your company’s overall regulatory compliance process.
As you implement 988 for your US-based users, our TeliCoreTM softswitch platform enables you to easily create a dialing rule so that TeliCore can translate 988 to the needed toll-free number. Our fully-integrated Switching and Billing also enables you to create a “zero rate” for your new 988 destination so that callers are not charged.
Like all of Telinta’s solutions, you can easily create a connection to any VoIP Termination carrier you need for routing 988 calls to the required toll-free number.
The configurations you make to implement 988 in your Telinta environment can be applied to many popular services such as Hosted PBX, SIP Trunks, Mobile VoIP via a brandable softphone app, Business and Residential VoIP, WebRTC, and more.
Since 2002, Telinta has provided hosted white label solutions for the rapidly-changing VoIP marketplace, both in the US and around the world. Our platform is highly flexible, enabling you to quickly adapt as your regulatory requirements evolve.
Want to learn more? Contact us today.