There were 1,666 press releases posted in the last 24 hours and 413,930 in the last 365 days.

"Kari's Law" Now the Law of the Land

Avaya Praises Signing of Bi-Partisan Direct 9-1-1 Access Legislation

President Donald J. Trump, joined by family members of Kari Hunt Dunn and U.S. legislators, signs H.R. 582 Kari's Law in the Oval Office at the White House, Friday, February 16, 2018, in Washington, D.C. The law requires multi-line telephone systems, like those found in hotels or offices, to allow users to dial 911 without a prefix. The law is named for Kari Hunt Dunn, who in 2013 was fatally stabbed in a hotel room by her estranged husband, as her children watched. Dunn's then-9-year-old daughter repeatedly dialed 911, but was unable to reach emergency responders because the hotel phone required her to first dial 9. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)Click here for high-resolution version

/EINPresswire.com/ -- SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - February 21, 2018) - Avaya Holdings Corp. (NYSE: AVYA), a global market leader in contact center and unified communications solutions as well as call taking solutions for public safety communication centers, praised the United States Congress for passing "The Kari's Law Act of 2017" which requires direct dial access to 9-1-1 services from all devices. Emergency 9-1-1 services commenced in this country fifty years ago on February 16, when the first 9-1-1 call was placed in Haleyville, Alabama. With the signing of Kari's Law on the anniversary date of that call, these services will now be available directly across all devices.

The campaign to pass Kari's Law began in December 2013, when the namesake of the bill, Kari Hunt was murdered by her estranged husband in a hotel room in Marshall, Texas. Hunt's 9-year-old daughter attempted to dial 9-1-1 but was unable to reach emergency resources because the multi-line phone required a "9" to be dialed for an outside line. Kari's father, Hank Hunt made a promise to his granddaughter that this would never happen to another child. He worked tirelessly over the last four years to get laws passed at both the state and federal levels.

Since the tragic incident, Avaya took up advocacy for direct dial 9-1-1 from multiline telephone systems (MLTS), supporting Mr. Hunt on his mission to change the dialing practices that were no longer necessary, and which contributed to the tragedy for his family. Advocacy included education and testimony to legislative and standards organizations here in the United States as well as across the globe. Avaya raised awareness of new and advanced business practices and technologies now available on virtually all modern communications systems that eliminate the requirement for access codes that have historically complicated emergency calling. As a result, laws similar to Kari's Law were passed in Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, and Maine.

"From the beginning, Avaya was the first company dedicated to changing how various states implement 9-1-1 services," said Hank Hunt, father of Kari Hunt. "I cannot thank Avaya enough for its unwavering leadership, working side-by-side with me to drive this legislation forward. I also want to thank the 612,000 supporters for their signatures on Change.org where this initiative began four years ago, soon after Kari's passing. Because of all these efforts, I know that Kari's death was not in vain."

Kari's Law requires the configuration allowing users to directly initiate a call to 9-1-1 without dialing any additional digit, code, prefix, or post-fix. Separate versions of the bill were initially passed in 2017 in the House and Senate. Committees then worked to combine the two versions into a single bill H.R. 582.

"Hank and his family's loss have deeply affected us. We are glad to have been able to help Hank keep his promise to his granddaughter," said Jim Chirico, president and chief executive officer, Avaya. "The technology fix was available, we just needed to drive public awareness. Direct access to emergency services has always been a core capability of Avaya communications platforms and so teaming up with Mr. Hunt to improve education and access to emergency services was something we took up immediately. Thanks to his tireless efforts, we got it done."

"Today represents a giant step to help ensure that everyone in the U.S., regardless of location or device, can simply dial 9-1-1 to engage emergency assistance," said Jean Turgeon, vice president and Chief Technologist, Digital Transformation and Evangelists at Avaya. "Our public safety solutions teams will be dedicated to helping roll out 'Kari's Law' across all 50 states. The law and the technology fixes have and will continue to save lives."

Avaya offers mission-critical services in a resilient, reliable and secure environment to public safety organizations. The company is transforming how first responders save lives. Avaya is helping replace the many legacy first responder systems developed and deployed in the 1960s and 1970s, better connecting the more than 6,000 9-1-1 centers across the United States.

About Avaya
Avaya enables the mission-critical, real-time communication applications of the world's most important operations. As a global leader in delivering superior communications experiences, Avaya provides the most complete portfolio of software and services for contact center and unified communications -- offered on premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid. Today's digital world requires communications enablement, and no other company is better positioned to do this than Avaya. For more information, please visit www.avaya.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This document contains certain "forward-looking statements." All statements other than statements of historical fact are "forward-looking" statements for purposes of the U.S. federal and state securities laws. These statements may be identified by the use of forward looking terminology such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "our vision," "plan," "potential," "preliminary," "predict," "should," "will," or "would" or the negative thereof or other variations thereof or comparable terminology and include, but are not limited to, expected feature releases, statements about future products, expected cash savings and statements about growth, exchange listing and improved operational metrics. The Company has based these forward-looking statements on its current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections. While the Company believes these expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections are reasonable, such forward-looking statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond its control. The factors are discussed in the Company's Registration Statement on Form 10 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, may cause its actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. For a further list and description of such risks and uncertainties, please refer to the Company's filings with the SEC that are available at www.sec.gov. The Company cautions you that the list of important factors included in the Company's SEC filings may not contain all of the material factors that are important to you. In addition, in light of these risks and uncertainties, the matters referred to in the forward-looking statements contained in this report may not in fact occur. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as otherwise required by law.

Follow Avaya on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr and the Avaya Connected Blog.

Source: Avaya Newsroom

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2018/2/20/11G149998/Images/Karis_Law_-_Image_for_MW_PR-de5fdbfb7978a5cf8cf3759b47712e7b.jpg