FAQ 
| Frequently Asked Questions |
|
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How long have you been in business? A. We have been in business since 1989. Q. How many states do you have installations? A. We have installations in 45 states and parts of Canada. Q. Do you have your own engineering group? A. Yes, our own engineering staff designs all of our hardware and software applications. Q. What services are included in your Turnkey Solution package? A. Our Turnkey Solutions Package includes equipment, installation, full maintenance/service, and 24-hour monitoring and dispatch services. Q. How many telephones do you currently service under your Turnkey Solution package? A. We service and maintain over 20,000 across the U.S. and Canada. Q. What is your billing frequency? A. We generally bill quarterly in advance; however, we can easily accommodate your billing needs. We also can do automatic credit card billing and EFT. Q. Do you have liability insurance coverage? A. Yes, we carry general liability, umbrella, and Errors & Omissions insurance policies with combined limits of $15 million. Q. Are your phones available in numerous colors and materials? A. Our elevator and area of refuge phones are available in No. 4 brushed stainless steel with bronze, Muntz, or mirror finishes optional. All of our other models are generally red powder-coated steel, but are available in multiple color or color combinations. Q. What are they made of? A. Heavy-gauge powder coated steel or stainless steel with stainless or galvanized hardware. Q. How do I know if I need ADA compliant phones/service? A. If the building facility or parking lot was built or renovated after July 1994, any phone(s) installed must meet ADA requirements. Furthermore, an ADA compliant phone may reduce your liability in case of a tragedy. Complete ADA regulations may be found at the U.S. Department of Justice website. Q. What is E911? A. E911 is an initiative of the Federal Communication Commission primarily addressing the problem of locating cellular calls to 911 call centers. Many times, cellular emergency calls are routed to the wrong 911-call center or locating data is lost during the transfer process to the appropriate 911-call center. Q. Do you offer maintenance and monitoring for the emergency phones? A. Yes we have a Turnkey Solution that includes installation, full maintenance and monitoring at affordable rates. These services are also available on an a la carte basis. Q. How do I know if I need an emergency phone by my pool? A. Many states require that you have an emergency phone in close proximity to the pool. Whether your state requires it or not, having an emergency phone by your pool can help to avoid a tragedy and can reduce your liability. Q. Where should my phone be located? A. In most states the emergency phone must be no further than 200 unobstructed feet from the pool. Q. What is the law in my state? A. For information about your state’s pool phone laws look here. Q. Do I need a new phone line? A. Generally, no. Our line seizure technology allows you to use an existing phone line for the emergency phone. Q. Do I need electricity? A. Our phones are phone lined powered; however, line seizure and cellular options require a simple 110-130 VAC duplex outlet. Q. Do you have cellular options? A. Yes. If you are not able to connect to a phone line, we offer cellular service. Q. Why would I use a cellular emergency phone at poolside? A. Primarily to avoid the costs of trenching for new landline telephone service. Furthermore, the cost of our cellular service is less than the cost of a traditional phone line. Q. Are your phones ADA compliant? A. Yes, all of our phones comply with ADA and all state and local codes. Q. What does your Turnkey Solution agreement cover? A. Our Turnkey Solution Package includes equipment, installation, full maintenance/service, and 24-hour monitoring and dispatch services. Q. An inspector told me that my phone had to be answered by 911. Is that true? A. No, most states require that emergency phone calls be answered by a dedicated emergency call center. Kings III is a dedicated emergency call center. Q. Will I be charged for false, nuisance or prank calls? A. No, but other emergency responders may charge or fine you for excessive false calls. Q. Why is Kings III’s emergency phone superior to a pay phone? A. Our emergency phone eliminates the traffic, litter, graffiti and vandalism associated with pay phones. Our phones dial directly to our emergency call center discouraging misuse. Q. Will having an emergency pool phone with professional monitoring lower my liability insurance rates? A. It certainly may, but check with your liability insurance carriers to be sure. Q. How can I be sure that my phone is working? A. Periodically manually testing, and automatic self-testing are the best assurances that your phone is working. Q. How much do your phones and service cost? A. Our phones and service are quite affordable. Installation charges range from $199 to $299 depending on the phone model with monthly service fees that are often lower than the phone line charges that we can eliminate. Check out our individual phone prices here. Generally our contracts have a primary term of one year with auto renewal terms of three years. Q. Do you offer a warranty? How long does it last? A. Yes. On products purchased out right our warranty is twelve months parts, 90 days labor; however, under a Service/Maintenance or Turnkey Solution agreement the equipment is warranted for the full term of the agreement or any renewal terms. Q. When can I expect my phones to be installed? A. In general, we schedule installations within 2-3 weeks of receiving signed agreements. However, we can accommodate rush and emergency installations. For tower, parking lot, and garage installations generally occur within 6-8 weeks of receiving contract. Q. How do I get service or repairs? A. You can call or email Kings III of America directly. Our service number is 1-800-766-2029. Q. How soon can I expect maintenance to arrive when I have a problem? A. We strive for same day or next business day repairs. We can also accommodate emergency repairs. Q. We can’t sign Vendor Agreements, are purchase orders okay? A. Yes. Q. If the electricity goes out will my phones work? A. Yes they will because they are either powered by the telephone line or by a back up battery depending on the model. Q. What types of weather conditions will your emergency phones operate in? A. Our emergency phones work in extreme weather conditions, from desert heat to freezing cold, and also in high humidity areas by beaches and pools. Q. How do the personnel answering emergency calls determine the location of the emergency callers? A. At Kings III’s emergency call center, the calls are automatically identified via the transmission of DTMF tones sent by the phone. For phones not monitored by Kings III, the phone is equipped with a voice location recording, which may be up to 60 seconds in length. Q. Do you charge usage fees based on how many times a phone is used? A. No. Q. Can your phones automatically self-test? What happens if a scheduled test call is missed? A. Yes they can. If Kings III is monitoring the phone and a scheduled test call is missed, then our equipment automatically identifies the missed call and prompts our operators to initiate an action plan to determine the cause. Q. What is monitoring? A. Monitoring is a short name for all of the processes involved in handling emergency telephone calls. Our staff answers the emergency calls, dispatches the appropriate response personnel and assists in keeping the caller calm. Our monitoring staff computer systems digitally record the calls, including the dispatch calls, and retrieve and display all account information for our operators and log all events electronically time and date stamping the records. Q. Why would I want Kings III monitoring my emergency phones instead of 911? A. Kings III emergency call center cannot only dispatch fire/rescue, but they can also dispatch maintenance personnel and property managers to handle non-emergency calls. Q. Is there a way for emergency callers to contact third parties through the emergency call center when they are waiting for help? A. Yes, our emergency call center personnel frequently make helpful calls for emergency callers. For example, we frequently notify friends, loved ones, and employers of the emergency situation and often help make helpful arrangements for them. Q. Where is your emergency call center located? A. Our primary monitoring facility is located at our headquarters in Coppell, Texas a suburb of Dallas. Our redundant, back-up facility is located a few miles away in The Colony, Texas. Q. Will I be charged for false or nuisance calls? A. Not by Kings III but other emergency responders may charge or fine you for excessive false calls. Q. Do you monitor fire, burglar alarms, or other types of calls? A. No we don’t. We do not want to be distracted by other types of signals. Our people specialize in handling emergency phone calls. Q. Do you record emergency calls and how long do you keep the recordings? A. Yes, we digitally record all calls and store them for a minimum of seven years. The recordings can be retrieved or even emailed for later playback. Q. How do you know where an emergency phone call is coming from? A. Our patented locating dialer technology automatically transmits the location information to our emergency call center computers. That information is displayed before our operators even answer the call. This technology enables us to quickly determine the nature of the emergency rather than wasting time trying to determine the caller’s location. Q. How can you tell where your cellular models are calling from? I have heard horror stories about 911 operators being unable to find callers using cell phones. A. While some horror stories are true, our cellular models utilizes the same automatic locating system that our landline phones do. We do not rely on E911 or capturing caller ID in order to locate calls. Q. What happens if there is a power failure at the central monitoring station? A. We have an automatic back up power supply with a natural gas-powered electrical generator that supports the emergency call center during power failure. In addition, we have a fully redundant back up center located off site. Q. How do you know what numbers to call to reach my local 911? A. We have our own database that has the local 911 numbers for each phone we have in service. Q. How can your monitoring service reduce false dispatches? A. Our emergency call center personnel are experienced and trained to discern the difference between actual emergencies and non-emergencies and prank calls. So unnecessary dispatching is significantly reduced. Q. Can Kings III monitor other brands of phones? A. Sure, we can monitor virtually any brand of emergency phones. Q. If a building has an in-house guard, how can your emergency call center be of use? A. Kings III’s emergency call center frees up the guards time, and if there is not a guard available you can rest assure that there will always be someone available to answer the call and dispatch assistance. Q. Do you have a redundant, off-site facility to your primary emergency call center? A. Yes, we maintain a fully redundant off site facility. Q. Does your emergency call center offer three way calling? A. Yes, we are capable of making three way calls in order to connect emergency responders directly to emergency callers while still recording all conversations. Q. What makes your emergency call operators professional? A. They are Red Cross CPR certified and work in a new, modern monitoring center. Q. My elevator inspector says my current emergency phone system meets code. Can I rely on that? A. Code compliance is your responsibility and “my inspector said…” is not a solid defense. Look here to find our emergency phone test procedures and perform the tests to see if your systems comply with code. Q. We just purchased new emergency phones. Can Kings III monitor these phones? A. Yes, but to take advantage of any possible phone line consolidation opportunities we must install our equipment including our patented locating dialer. Also, when our equipment is installed, you are also eliminating surprise repair bills because full maintenance is included with our exclusive Turnkey Solutions package. Q. In my elevators I’d like to eliminate the phone cabinet doors. Is there a low cost way to do this? A. Yes, we have many different sizes and finishes of our Flush Mount unit (FM-3000). This will cover the phone cabinet door opening. Q. I’ve got dedicated phone lines; can you help me eliminate that cost? A. Yes, with our patented dialer technology, we can eliminate the cost of dedicated emergency phone lines. Q. What does phone line sharing mean and how is that different from your phone line seizing technology? A. Line sharing means that a telephone line is used by more than one telephone device. Kings III’s line seizing technology captures an existing phone line for use by our emergency phones. This enables our emergency phones to take over a phone line and use it to contact the emergency call center, while blocking access by non-emergency devices until the call is completed. With line sharing, a non-emergency device may block emergency calls. Q. I have an intercom system that I would like to replace. Can you use the wiring? A. Yes, we do not require new-shielded wiring. Q. Once I sign a service agreement, how soon can I expect the equipment to be installed? A. Generally we install the equipment 2-3 weeks after a signed service agreement has been received. Q. I already have a guard station in the building, and my elevators report to the guard station. How do you fit into that picture? A. Kings III’s emergency call center frees up the guards time, and if there is not a guard available you can rest assure that there will always be someone available to answer the call and dispatch assistance. Q. Are your phones ADA compliant? A. Yes, all of our phones comply with ADA and all state and local codes. Q. Do you have a solution to make my phones ADA compliant without spending $600-$1200 per phone? A. Sure, our Turnkey Solution offers ADA compliant technology for a fraction of the cost of new phones through your elevator company. Q. The elevator company says that my phone line does not work while the telephone company says that the line works properly. How can your Turnkey Solutions help? A. Our technicians are problem solvers. They focus on getting your phones working rather than pointing fingers. Q. If I budget for your Turnkey Solution, does that cover replacing equipment as well as labor? A. Yes. Q. How much do your phones and service cost? A. Our phones and service are quite affordable. Installation charges range from $175 to $399 depending on the phone model with monthly service fees that are often lower than the phone line charges that we can eliminate. Check out our individual phone prices here. [Top of Page] Q. How do I know if I need an emergency phone by my pool? A. Many states require that you have an emergency phone in close proximity to the pool. Whether your state requires it or not, having an emergency phone by your pool can help to avoid a tragedy and can reduce your liability. Q. Where should my phone be located? A. In most states the emergency phone must be no further than 200 unobstructed feet from the pool. Q. What is the law in my state? A. For information about your state’s pool phone laws look here. Q. Do I need a new phone line? A. Generally, no. Our line seizure technology allows you to use an existing phone line for the emergency phone. Q. Do I need electricity? A. Our phones are phone lined powered; however, line seizure of cellular options require a simple 110-130 VAC duplex outlet. Q. Do you have cellular options? A. Yes. If you are not able to connect to a phone line, we offer cellular service. Q. Why would I use a cellular emergency phone at poolside? A. Primarily to avoid the costs of trenching for new landline telephone service. Furthermore, the cost of our cellular service is less than the cost of a traditional phone line. Q. Are your phones ADA compliant? A. Yes, all of our phones comply with ADA and all state and local codes. Q. What does your Turnkey Solution agreement cover? A. Our Turnkey Solution Package includes equipment, installation, full maintenance/service, and 24-hour monitoring and dispatch services. Q. An inspector told me that my phone had to be answered by 911. Is that true? A. No, most states require that emergency phone calls be answered by a dedicated emergency call center. Kings III is a dedicated emergency call center. Q. Will I be charged for false, nuisance or prank calls? A. No, but other emergency responders may charge or fine you for excessive false calls. Q. Why is Kings III’s emergency phone superior to a pay phone? A. Our emergency phone eliminates the traffic, litter, graffiti and vandalism associated with pay phones. Our phones dial directly to our emergency call center discouraging misuse. Q. Will having an emergency pool phone with professional monitoring lower my liability insurance rates? A. It certainly may, but check with your liability insurance carriers to be sure. Q. How can I be sure that my phone is working? A. Periodically manually testing, and automatic self-testing are the best assurances that your phone is working. Q. How much do your phones and service cost? A. Our phones and service are quite affordable. Installation charges range from $199 to $299 depending on the phone model with monthly service fees that are often lower than the phone line charges that we can eliminate. Check out our individual phone prices here. Q. Why do I need building stairwell emergency phones? A. Many municipalities are adopting new ordinances requiring emergency communication systems in building stairwells. Because stairwell doors are often locked from the stairwell side, people can become trapped by smoke when evacuating a building and need to be able to exit the stairwell to try another one or to reach an Area of Refuge. Q. What is the law for stairwell emergency phones? A. Generally, your local fire codes cover stairwell emergency phones but they are also addressed in the International Building Code. Q. Do building stairwell phones have to meet ADA requirements? A. Yes, if your stairwell emergency phones were installed after July 1994, they must meet ADA requirements. Q. Do I need a dedicated line for each phone? A. No, our patented line seizure technology allows multiple emergency stairwell phones to seize an existing phone line rather than requiring a dedicated phone line. Q. How many phones do I need? A. You need to check your local codes but generally, they are required on every 4th or 5th floor above grade in each stairwell. Q. What type of phone do I need in my building stairwell? A. We offer several models and can assist you in selection of the model that best fits your needs. Q. Can my on-site security personnel monitor these building stairwell phones? A. Yes, but you should consider monitoring at our emergency call center because we free up the guards time. If there is not a guard available you can rest assure that there will always be someone available to answer the call and dispatch assistance. Q. Some of my stairwell doors have magnetic locks and others have door strikes. Can these locks be released in case of emergency? A. Yes, our emergency call center can remotely release those locks. Q. How much do your phones and service cost? A. Every installation is unique so we generally perform a site survey to determine your needs and to identify installation obstacles. [Top of Page] Q. What type of emergency phone do I need for my parking lot? A. We offer many models and can assist you in selection of the model(s) that best fit your needs. Q. What colors are available for the phones? A. Our parking lot phones are generally red powder-coated steel, but are available in multiple color or color combinations. Q. What kind of foundation do I need to have to mount these phones on? A. It is preferable to have a steel reinforced concrete pier, approximately 15 inches in diameter extending at least 1 ft. below the frost line. However, we can mount directly to light poles and most concrete parking lots without requiring foundation work. Q. Can your emergency phones be mounted to buildings or parking light poles? A. Yes they can. Q. Who will these phones call? A. These phones will call our emergency call center, or they can be programmed to call other designated responder as determined by our customers. Q. Is there a Turnkey Solutions package available that includes installation, monitoring, Service / Maintenance for parking lot phones? A. Yes, we do offer Turnkey Solution options that make requiring parking lot phones budget-friendly. Q. Do you offer cellular communication services? A. Yes. Q. Does your cellular phone just plug into a socket, or is it integrated into the phone itself? A. The emergency phone is a fully integrated cellular transceiver. Q. How does this help? A. Our cellular solutions avoid such problems such as signal loss, impedance mismatch and diminished speech quality resulting from non-integrated designs. Q. If I do not have access to electricity, do you offer solar power options? A. Yes we offer 40, 80, and 120-watt solar options. Q. How many phones do I need? A. There is no hard fast rule; however, considerations should include visibility, overall risk at the location and accessibility. Q. How much do your phones cost? A. That depends on the model, but our phones start at $300. Q. Do you offer installation as well as service and maintenance? A. Yes, under our Turnkey Solution Package we include equipment, installation, full maintenance/service, and 24-hour monitoring and dispatch services. Q. Does your emergency phone have a strobe light? What color is it? What do you need to make it operate? A. A strobe light is included in Tower Phones and optional on Wall Mount Models. The strobes may be red, yellow, blue, or green. We recommend blue because it is highly visible in the sea of taillights. Q. Can the strobe light be timed to stay on longer than the phone call so that emergency personnel can locate the caller? A. Yes, it can be timed to flash for up to an hour so that emergency personnel can easily locate the caller. Q. What type of emergency phone do you offer for my parking garage? A. We offer many models and can assist you in selection of the model(s) that best fit your needs. Q. Can your emergency phones be mounted to the columns in the parking garage? A. Yes. Q. Do you offer cellular communication services? A. Yes. Q. Can your system work off my existing intercom wiring? A. Yes, we do not require new, shielded wiring. Q. I have elevators and stairwells in my parking garage. Do you offer emergency phones for those too? A. Yes we do. Look here for a list of all our available models. Q. Does your emergency phone have a strobe light? What color is it? What do you need to make it operate? A. A strobe light is included in Tower Phones and optional on Wall Mount Models. The strobes may be red, yellow, blue, or green. We recommend blue because it is highly visible in the sea of taillights. The strobe light is powered off of either 110-130 VAC or 12 VDC. Q. What type of power do I need? A. Many of our phones are phone line powered; however, 110-130 VAC is necessary to operate strobe lights and charge storage batteries in tower and cellular models. Q. What type of emergency phone do you offer for these types of campuses? A. We offer a full line of emergency phones including elevator phones, stairwell phones, area of refuge phones, parking lot phones and parking garage phones. Q. Will your phone work with our current PBX system? A. Yes. Q. Can our security staff answer calls from your emergency phones? A. Yes, but you should consider monitoring at our emergency call center because we free up the guards time. If there is not a guard available you can rest assure that there will always be someone available to answer the call and dispatch assistance. Q. Do you offer an affordable, Turnkey Solution for your tower emergency phones on our campus? A. Yes our Turnkey Solution Package includes equipment, installation, full maintenance/service, and 24-hour monitoring and dispatch services. Q. Are your phones ADA compliant and can they be installed in an ADA compliant manner? A. Yes all our phones are ADA compliant and installed in an ADA compliant manner. Q. Can we install and program your phones or do we need professional installation help? A. Many of our models are easily installed by your maintenance or telecommunications staff; however, professional installation is available from Kings III. Q. We find it difficult to keep our phones working. Can you offer a solution to our chronic problem? A. Kings III phones are carefully built for reliability. Our position is that emergency phones need to work every time. The phones have rugged components and are triple tested including after installation. Q. What is an area of refuge? A. An area of refuge is a designated place where people trapped in a building can go to seek and await help. Q. Is it necessary to have an emergency phone there? A. If you have a designated area of refuge, the law requires that you have an emergency phone there. Q. Do area of refuge emergency phones have to meet ADA requirements? A. Yes, if your area of refuge emergency phones were installed after July 1994, they must meet ADA requirements. Q. What is the law regarding area of refuge emergency phones? A. Generally, your local fire codes cover area of refuge emergency phones but they are also addressed in the International Building Code. Q. Do I need a dedicated phone line for each phone? A. No, our patented line seizure technology allows multiple emergency area of refuge phones to seize an existing phone line rather than requiring a dedicated phone line. Q. What type of phone do I need for the area of refuge? A. We offer several models and can assist you in selection of the model that best fits your needs. Q. Can my on-site security personnel monitor these area of refuge phones? A. Yes, but you should consider monitoring at our emergency call center because we free up the guards time. If there is not a guard available you can rest assure that there will always be someone available to answer the call and dispatch assistance. Q. How much do your phones and service cost? A. Every installation is unique so we generally perform a site survey to determine your needs and to identify installation obstacles. Q. Is your Turnkey Solution available for these phones? A. Yes, our Turnkey Solution Package includes equipment, installation, full maintenance/service, and 24-hour monitoring and dispatch services. Q. What makes Kings III AED cabinets different from other cabinets available on the market? A. We have integrated our class-leading emergency telephone, both landline and cellular) directly in to the AED storage cabinet. Providing a remote monitoring and dispatch capability to the simple act of opening the cabinet door. Q. How much does the cabinet cost? A. Very affordably. We offer full-featured, interior models starting at $549.00. It affords reasonably priced protection for your valuable (and expensive) AED’s. Q. How much is installation? A. Installation is available starting at $249.00. It can also be easily accomplished by your own maintenance personnel. Q. Does the emergency phone have to be monitored through your emergency call center? A. No, any of our AED-3000 models may be monitored wherever you choose. Any alarm central station, 9-1-1 call center or even your own guards can monitor. However, we recommend a professional, dedicated emergency call center such as ours, handle monitoring and dispatch duties as the monitoring personnel are specifically trained for such emergency response. Q. What are the AED laws in my state? A. There is no simple answer as AED’s are new technology and it takes time for legislation to catch up. Most states have laws affording some protection from liability for lay rescuers. These “Good Samaritan” laws are evolving. AED’s are being installed in federal government buildings by federal initiatives. This includes courthouses, office buildings, airports etc. More and more municipal governments are requiring AED’s in publicly accessible places such as municipal and public offices, shopping centers and sports facilities. Check with your city or county health department for specific rules in your area. Q. Where are AEDs recommended? A. AED’s are recommended at locations such as: Shopping Centers and Malls, publicly accessible building lobbies, sports facilities, facilities housing the elderly, airports and mass transit depots, health/fitness centers and more. For a more complete list of possible locations, contact the American Heart Association. Q. Do you sell AED units? A. No, there are many manufacturers of AED’s. Our AED Cabinets can accommodate any commercially available AED’s available today. Q. Do you recommend a certain brand of AEDs? A. No, we do not recommend a specific brand or model of AED. We do recommend that you purchase from a reputable providers or authorized dealer/resellers. Also, do not purchase AED’s via Internet auction sites as there is no way to verify that the AED is new, in working condition or that the AED is being sold legally. Q. Does your cabinet fit all AED sizes? A. Yes, the AED storage area of our cabinets will accommodate any commercially available AED. Q. Can you provide any other services beside installation and product? A. Yes, we offer professional monitoring and dispatch services with permanent digital voice recordings and dispatch records, as well as, full maintenance and repair services covering the cabinet and the emergency telephone. Q. How often will the AED phones need to be serviced? A. There is no set service schedule, our AED emergency phones are ruggedly designed and built for years of reliable service. We do strongly recommend that you periodically test activate the emergency phone to make certain that the telephone line, as well as, the emergency phone work properly. Q. How long will installation take? A. Basic installation is a simple process that should take less than two hours under normal conditions. Q. We currently have AED’s with cabinets in our facilities, are you able to add a phone connection to our current unit? A. Yes, generally we can install an emergency telephone adjacent to your existing AED cabinet and wire to the cabinet’s existing door plunger switch or we can add a door switch for that purpose. |
||||
