ALARM MONITORING FAQ'S
Q: What happens if my phone line is cut?
A: Alarms communicate to the monitoring station in three ways.
Good
Digital Dialers pick up the telephone line at a client location and call into our receiver. This is the most economical type of alarm but also the easiest to attack. In the event that a perpetrator was to cut or disable the telephone line, the monitoring station would not know immediately that the phone line had been cut and that the alarm is unable to communicate. This standard retail monitoring rate is about $20.00 to $25.00 per month.
Better
Cellular back up is a service where if the regular telephone line is non-functional for any reason, the alarm system at the client premise calls us over the cellular base band to report the event. This is more secure than a regular dialer but can still be compromised if the cellular system was not in a protected area at the client premise and/or burned, if the radio signals were blocked or if someone were to attack the device prior to it communicating with the monitoring station. Retail monitoring rate about $34.95 to $39.95 per month for cellular backup.
Best
Supervised alarms communicate to the monitoring station on a continual basis. In the event a fire were to burn the circuit, someone were to attack the premise phone lines, disable the alarm or interfere with the client alarm in any way, the monitoring station would be notified within 2 minutes and be able to take action. This type of “supervision” now comes in two flavours.
- DVAC uses a Bell supplied multi-point data circuit that is installed at the client premise. Our receiver “polls” the modem at the client premise and if there is no response, generates an alarm at the monitoring station for the dispatchers to take action. This alarm is ULC listable. Retail rate is about $30.00 for monitoring and $30.00 for the telco charge to cover the circuit costs. One time charge here varies as this requires proprietary equipment and may cost $500.00 or more. This can only be installed within the coverage area of our circuit and Bell has applications in place to increase the telco charges.
- IP Alarms are the latest technology in this “supervised” alarm area. The client has an alarm that connects to an IP module. The IP receiver in the monitoring station communicates with this device in much the same way that we poll DVAC addresses. In the event that there is no response from the client’s system, this generates an alarm at the monitoring station for the dispatchers to take action. This alarm is ULC listable. Retail rate about $30.00 to $34.95 per month plus a one time charge of about $500.00 for hardware. This can be installed anywhere high speed service is available. Many clients already have high speed and simply connect this up to the existing service with no additional communication costs.
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