Virginia VA
Virginia has detailed E-911 statutory language and local PSAP operations; verify current local and state requirements before rollout.
What matters before you deploy or audit E911 in Virginia
- Virginia’s E-911 statute is detailed and useful for enterprise design.
- ALI should identify floor, room, building, cubicle, office, or equivalent detail as applicable.
- The law includes an alternative-location concept for contiguous areas under 7,000 sq ft.
How detailed should the dispatchable location be?
Virginia: alternative call-location information may be deemed sufficient for a contiguous area under 7,000 sq ft on one or more floors; larger or complex areas need finer location data.
Exact law callouts
Short excerpts are included for orientation. Follow the links for the complete statutory or regulatory text.
Direct 911 dialing
47 C.F.R. § 9.16(b)(1)“without dialing any additional digit, code, prefix, or post-fix”
Covered MLTS environments should support plain 911 dialing from every station with dialing capability. Old PBX habits such as 9-911 are a compliance red flag.
On-site or responsible-party notification
47 C.F.R. § 9.16(b)(2)“must not delay the call to 911”
Security desk, reception, facilities, or crisis teams can be notified, but notification cannot hold or reroute the emergency call before it reaches public safety.
Dispatchable location for MLTS
47 C.F.R. § 9.16(b)(3)“conveying the dispatchable location of the caller to the PSAP”
The enterprise has to maintain usable location records, not merely a billing address or main switchboard number.
Virginia ALI detail
Va. Code § 56-484.19“floor name or number, room name or number”
Virginia sites should use interior labels that match what responders, security, and occupants can actually find.
Virginia 7,000 sq ft alternative method
Va. Code § 56-484.19“fewer than 7,000 square feet”
Small contiguous areas may be easier to locate, but larger spaces should be divided into more specific emergency response locations.
911 context
Virginia's emergency-calling environment includes state-level law, county/city PSAPs, federal-adjacent facilities, universities, healthcare systems, and distributed corporate sites.
911 authority and routing model
Enterprises should map every location to the correct county or independent-city PSAP/ECC. Provider records should support direct callback, dispatchable location, and internal notification.
Location delivery approach
A civic address should be extended with floor, suite, room, building, wing, or entrance details where needed. Softphone users need dynamic location capture and a policy for working away from the office.
Dispatchable location area / square-footage rule
Virginia treats an alternative call-location method as acceptable when the calling party information corresponds to a contiguous area of fewer than 7,000 sq ft on one or more floors, or when responders can readily locate the station through alerting or on-site support. ALI should identify floor, room, building, cubicle, office, or equivalent detail as applicable.
State-specific differences
Virginia's special issue is jurisdictional precision: independent cities and counties can create routing assumptions that are easy to get wrong if the site inventory is sloppy.
Regulatory references
Privacy and records considerations
911 location records, callback numbers, test-call results, and site inventories should be treated as sensitive safety data. Limit access, keep change history, and align retention with state public-records rules, customer contracts, and incident-response needs.