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COMMENTS ON BACK UP POWER SOURCE ARTICLE ON NOVEMBER 4, 2015
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Ken
    Wow. I almost lost the point of this letter from SG rereading it over and over again just to understand all the misspelled words and grammar mistakes in it. However, not being the grammar police, and not knowing SG, I did understand the concern with telephone companies' lack of concern for their customers. We try hard to explain this to our Clients, include the cost of a UPS with every alarm installation and try to get our Clients to purchase a cellular unit so that changes to their telephone service, including disconnections and outages will not effect our Client's alarm system from communicating. We have had Comcast cable phone installers tell their customers that when they change to Comcast Phone Service that they have nothing to do with any alarm system that is not installed by them. If the Comcast customer wants to use their phone service with another alarm provider, the customer will have to call their current alarm service provider to make the connection. That is often not understood until after the new Comcast telephone service is online and the customer complains to the Comcast Customer Service Center that their alarm system no longer communicates. Also, I always turn on daily test signals to my Clients, so they will not go more than a day without communicating to the Central Station and I turn on keypad alerts for "Fail to Communicate" and "Telephone Line Loss". The annoying beeps from the keypad will motivate any Client to give you a call.
    I feel I owe it to my Clients to explain the current changes and trends to telephone industry and provide Cellphone Backup Units with battery backup. If they also want to communicate using their landline system I include the price of a UPS to power any digital telephone communications modem, router and Network Switch. I have them sign a form stating if they change telephone services they must notify me in writing to determine if a service call is needed. They will need a service call. Activating a supervised "Daily Communication Test" for your alarm system is the simplest way to know your communications are working.
    Ken Kirschenbaum, thank you for all you are doing for the security industry  and allowing us to vent.
David Robinson
Security Consultant
Delta Surveillance
Bartlett, TN
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Ken
    To SG.  I don't disagree with your comments and concerns RE battery backup using these services.  However we have found that all these services rely on some form of VoIP (voice over internet protocol) to convert the alarm signals to data in IP packets (and back again at the other end) and this results in unreliable transmissions of these signals to the CS (central Station), including missed dispatches, undefined signals, and even false dispatches to the wrong account.  So even if the battery backup issue was solved, you still should not use these VoIP based services for alarm communications.   We will not connect new accounts to these services and when we find existing accounts have switched (because of all the various problems that start to occur after the switch) we recommend the customer to install a cellular or internet and cellular communicator, or require they get a "real" POTS line.  The later is in quotes because you can never be sure that a POTs line is truly 100% POTS. The long distance providers use VoIP "in the backhaul" (in their fiber LD networks) and this can cause the same issues as VoIP to the premise, depending on the quality of the VoIP equipment and software used in those LD networks. 
Thanks,
Rob Driscoll
Koorsen Fire & Security
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Ken
    All the more reason for cellular communication.
Pat Lane
Central Station Manager
Dehart Alarm Systems
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Ken
    There is a simple solution.  Power the modem from your alarm panel which is a supervised power supply.
Dennis Nethercott
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Ken
    To add to the concerns of back up power for communication pathways by SG. I think another concern may be the fact that these providers are all supplying a digital phone service and it's my understanding that digital phone lines aren't recommended as a communications path for alarm systems. Is this the case?
LD
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RESPONSE
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    I think digital phone service is still acceptable communication pathway, along with radio, cellular and VoIP 
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