Dialing 911 from a university phone line just got easier. In compliance with Senate Bill 14, the U will now have direct dialing for 911 in an emergency.

Senate Bill 14 (SB 14) affects emergency telephone services, requiring businesses to provide direct 911 dialing without using an additional digit or prefix. It also requires businesses to keep and update a location database for their phone system to ensure emergency services automatically receive the exact location from which the call was made.

Prior to this change, a person had to dial 9-911 on university phone lines to get a call through. Now, those on campus only have to do is dial 9-1-1.

This change will take effect on June 25 at 2 a.m., and even after direct dialing is in place, the old system for dialing out will continue to work for those who are used to dialing 9 for an outside line.

“We want to make our campus as accessible and safe as possible for everyone,” said Mike Ekstrom, director of Network and Communications Infrastructure for UIT. “Compliance with Senate Bill 14 helps simplify the ability to reach emergency responders and improves the ability of emergency responders to locate those in need.”

Another part of SB 14 makes it very important for the university community to inform UIT whenever they move their phone lines to a new location so the emergency response database is up to date with the correct information – otherwise emergency responders risk showing up at the original address on file and not where the emergency really is happening. To do this, call UIT at 801-581-4000 and choose option 2.