How does my alarm communicate with the Control Room?
Since its conception till now, alarm systems, fax machines and medical alarms have been happily communicating to control rooms throughout Australia using standard copper analogue phone lines. Basically, when your alarm is triggered, your alarm dialler uses your phone line to send a series of DTMF tones to the alarm monitoring control room.
Are copper phone lines still a reliable way to send signals to the Control Room?
Up till recently, this method has been extremely reliable. But since so many homes and businesses are now using digital phone lines, and now with the installation of the NBN, sending signals via copper phone cables is no longer safe or reliable. Soon, millions of alarm diallers, and medical alarms will cease to operate, but don’t panic, there are solutions.
What happens when I connect NBN?
In most cases, as soon as you switch over to the NBN, your old Alarm dialler fails to communicate with your control room. The alarm dialler can still send the signals but the signals become distorted and unrecognisable.
Our Recommendation
After testing many of the alarm signalling systems available within our security industry, we’ve chosen two solutions to allow your existing alarm system to keep working perfectly, even with the NBN connected:
- For home security and small businesses, we’ve chosen the Permaconn 4G GPRS unit. This will communicate alarm signals via Telstra GPRS as primary communication path and if required, the unit can also be set up to have a secondary communication path using your internet/data network.
- For Government, large commercial and VIP clients, we’ve chosen the EMIZON TCD Communicator which communicates to the control room via broadband/IP as primary communication path and Telstra 4G as secondary communication path.
Main Benefits
- Future proof devices. Not affected by digital phone lines or the NBN.
- No more phone bills. All associated phone calls to control room are inclusive in your monitoring fees.
- Increased level of security. Above systems will continue to transmit alarm signals even if your phone/data network goes down or phone lines are cut.
- Recognised by all major insurance companies.
- Meets Intruder Alarm System Australian Standards AS/NZS 2201