Clients often ask us why their phone line seems to get disconnected every time that they come home and disarm their system. Clients whose alarms we have taken over comment that their phone line was never used in this way with their old company.
Your alarm uses your telephone line to communicate, and at Provident, as standard practice, we monitor EVERY signal that your alarm is capable of sending. Therefore, every time the system is armed, dis-armed, a zone is bypassed, battery is low, power is lost, etc. the alarm sends a unique signal to our Operations Centre in Kerrisdale.
Conversely, many other alarm companies program alarms to simply send ‘alarm’ signals only. For an alarm company, sending ‘alarm’ signals only offers several advantages…
- it significantly reduces the volume of signal traffic coming into the central station, allowing for many more clients to be monitored per phone line; and
- in the case of out-of-town central stations, it reduces long distance and 1-800 line charges. This is why some companies are able to charge so little for their ‘monitoring’ service… Because they are only monitoring about 1% of the signals that an alarm is capable of sending.
Unfortunately, by programming an alarm to only send an actual ‘alarm’ signal and not communicate every time the system is armed or disarmed, it opens up the possibility that a client’s alarm may not be operating or communicating correctly, and the only time the alarm company will figure that out will be after a burglary where no signal is received and the client calls to find out why. As a result, with some alarm companies, they may be ‘monitoring’ for years before realizing that there is a problem with the alarm and that it is incapable of sending a signal in the event of an actual burglary.
Due to the fact that most alarm systems are monitored through a telephone line, every time the alarm needs to send a signal, it will seize the line and send the signal through. As a result, every time you arm your alarm, your phone line will be
unavailable for about 30-45 seconds while the alarm is communicating.
On older systems, the line may be tied up for as much as 90 seconds.
Most alarms, and certainly all Provident alarms, are installed so that the alarm has priority over the telephone line. Ensuring that the alarm has priority and can simply disconnect any other call in order to send a signal eliminates the risk of someone being able to call your home, and then break-in, with the alarm system unable to communicate because someone else is using the line.
Due to the fact that we monitor every signal that your alarm is capable of sending, every time you arm or disarm the system, the alarm will seize your phone line and then send us that signal.
In addition, we also program all of our clients’ alarms to send a ‘test’ signal at least once a day. Typically, we program this signal to occur at some point in the middle of the night so that it is unlikely to cut you off when you are on the phone.
What are the advantages of complete vs. ‘alarm’ only monitoring?
- Our computers are programmed to expect at least one ‘test’ signal every day. If your alarm cannot send the signal, for any reason, an alarm is generated for us to follow up on to ensure that everything is ok. As a result, it is virtually impossible for your alarm to be out of commission without us being able to figure that out within 24 hours. (of course, for maximum security you really need to have a back-up method of wireless communication to ensure that your alarm can send us a signal even if your phone line was cut)
- We log every signal that we receive from your alarm, allowing us to provide you with history reports that show which user armed or disarmed at what time, on what day. Further, these reports will show which, if any, zones were bypassed when the alarm was used.
- During an alarm response, our Operators can give our response team and the Police very important information that would otherwise be unavailable such as when the alarm was last armed. For example, we know right away whether the alarm was armed 45 seconds before the alarm (indicating that the likely cause of alarm was an exit error by the user) or that it has been six days since the alarm was armed, suggesting that the homeowners are likely out of town.
- If you cannot remember whether you armed the alarm when you left in a rush, you can call us and we can instantly confirm for you whether the system is armed or disarmed. (Incidentally, if the system has been left disarmed, we can remotely dial into the system and arm it for you)… which is helpful if you are halfway to Whistler.
The only negative aspect of monitoring this way is that there are times when users will be disconnected while on the phone. (for example, if the alarm is armed in STAY mode while someone is on the phone, and then another family member comes home and needs to disarm the alarm) Whenever possible, we will connect the alarm to the phone line that is used the least (typically the fax line) so that it causes the least disruption. Some clients have opted for a second line to ensure that they are never interrupted by the alarm sending a signal.
For clients that regularly call Europe or Asia at 3:00am, when many of our clients systems are programmed to send the test signal, we can easily change the time that the test signal is sent… please just give our office a call and we can do this remotely.