KEN KIRSCHENBAUM, ESQ ALARM - SECURITY INDUSTRY LEGAL EMAIL NEWSLETTER / THE ALARM EXCHANGE You can read all of our articles on our website. Having trouble getting our emails? Change your spam controls and whitelist ken@kirschenbaumesq.com ********************** comments from M2M regarding overseas communication November 6, 2023 ************************ comments from M2M regarding overseas communication from article on October 25, 2023 ************************ Ken I'd like to respond to several people commenting on alarm signals leaving the country. They mentioned Bulgaria specifically. The fact that a company has operations outside the US does not mean they design a platform that routes signals across boarders. M2M is a company that employs over 100 people primarily in St Paul, MN and Altanta, GA. We provide services to over 1M communicator and alarm panels in North America. These systems report to secure servers hosted in multiple US cities across the east coast, specifically in Clifton, NJ and Lithia Springs, GA. Or to the eastern US region for AWS connected devices. While it is true we have engineering and manufacturing in Bulgaria, the services we operate are designed to operate using servers in the geography where the system is installed. We have even pointed our backup/redundancy servers to these US facilities. In rare cases, it was possible for some devices to use Bulgarian servers in the past. This is no longer the case. Dave Mayne, President M2M Services/Alula St. Paul, MN 55101 ***************************** Response ***************************** Though M2M wasn’t mentioned in the October 25, 2023 article I suppose alarm dealers are familiar with the product. Many alarm components are made overseas and only a handful are on DOD banned list, and M2M is most definitely not on that list. Thanks to Dave Mayne at M2M for clarifying this. Below is another comment and response you won’t want to miss. ****************************** another comment ***************************** Ken, Sometimes I wonder what is worse, you with a keyboard or a cackle of your crones. Maybe it is the anonymous contributors to your blog. On October 25, 2023 you published “anon” again and the only sensible statement you made was the first sentence, “This sounds like a question for the central stations and UL and NRTL experts.” Which was followed by the cheap plug for your central station webinar series, LOL. I believe that the company you are referring to under the spooky cloak of darkness is M2M Services, which in my opinion has been supplying the most advanced dual cell technology and at the least cost alternative in the industry when purchased through my company USA Central Station Alarm Corp., founded in 1982 with offices in Port Chester, NY, Milford, CT, St. Paul, MN and Pasco, WA. M2m has a full design, manufacturing and tech support facility located in Bulgaria, and for those non-geography experts, Bulgaria, is in the Balkans, there are the countries of Moldova, Romania and Serbia between Bulgaria and the Ukraine. Bulgaria shares a border to the south and West with Turkey, Greece and North Macedonia, none of which has been in the news that I can recall. Anon, is obviously someone who works for a competing manufacturer / service provider and is jealous of the progress M2M has made in the industry. But let’s talk about M2M. USA has been monitoring M2M transmitters for nearly 7 years now without any incident and our dealers found them so easy, fast to install and price competitive that we started distributing them 6 years ago, But in “anon”’s letter what does near Ukraine even mean, have you not heard of the WWW (world wide web), its everywhere and designed in such a way that with the speed of light a data packet can travel through almost anywhere to reach its final destination. In fact some of the largest data centers for Facebook are housed in Finland, or is that okay because Finland does not have any controversy? BTW, neither does Bulgaria. But since I spoke of data centers, M2M Network Operation Centers are housed in the Newark, NJ, and Atlanta, GA, areas as well as Mexico and Canada for full redundancy as I understand it. But let’s review the origins of a cell signal (data packet) which is minuscule in size, traveling at the speed of light and only has addressing, an ID and even less data (two characters) to get its message into the cellular network. There it is comingled with a staggering amount of data, text messages, mobile browser activity, emails and countless number of business transactions such as the inventory in a soda machine and yet that little speck finds its way to one of the NOC’s located as I listed before, in the western hemisphere.. Once it’s at the NOC, this speck is analyzed, recorded and retransmitted to the appropriate central station to a one purpose, specialized designed receiver that only talks with the M2M NOC and it is lightning fast. The Fire communicator is NRTL tested and approved by the FDNY and California Fire Marshals office and those two alone should be enough for you to have seen this “anon” email as what it really is, a nonstarter for your blog from a competitor. But if that is not enough, Honeywell Fire Group is using the M2M as an OEM product for its flagship CLSS service, so if an internationally known manufacturer of fire detection chose to partner with M2M, its good enough for me. Ken, respectfully this issue is not going to become the replacement topic for central station monitoring performed from home (which my company has never done) so I would not try to make the preverbal mountain from a mole hill. No one is going to debate Zwirn because the largest companies in this industry don’t have too and they are the ones doing it. Smaller companies like USA believe in their Dealers and offer the best services and integrity every day. But if you want to do your readers a real service, they should check out our super deal on M2M transmitters at https://usacentralstation.com/m2m-commercial-fire-lte-promo/ and even a less cost alternative for burglar panels at https://usacentralstation.com/m2m-mini-lte-m-av-promo/ I can’t wait for your next blog Bart A. Didden, President U.S.A. Central Station Alarm Corp. Port Chester, NY Milford, CT St. Paul, MN Pasco, WA 877-872-1266 **************************** Response **************************** Cheap plug for the webinars? That from your shameless plugs for USA? You’re welcome,, for the webinars [which you chose to sit out for reasons best known to you] and the cheap plugs. So USA sells or provides M2M products and monitors those receivers. You probably should have made your case a little clearer like Dave did. The issue isn’t, and never was, M2M. The issue is are there signals traveling overseas to receivers that then re-transmit to central stations in the US? For example, there are US companies [US in the sense that they are located in the US; I don’t know who actually owns them] that manufacture transmitters that communicate to the manufacturer’s receivers and then re-transmit to central stations; the manufacturers charge RMR for the automated re-transition service, and whatever code deciphering takes place before re-transmitting to the central station. This technology, definitely not limited to one manufacturer or software developer, has enabled them to get into the RMR model for on-going service. The issue then is whether any of these signals are traveling to receivers located in foreign countries. First, I don’t know if there are any. Second, I don’t know that it would make a difference. I’d need some omniscient maven [which I thought was Yiddish for “knowledgeable” but google defines as “an expert or connoisseur”, like Bart, to explain whether it would create any additional risks to the alarm customer, dealer or central station. ************************** STANDARD FORM AGREEMENTS: To order up to date Standard Form Alarm / Security / Fire and related Agreements click here: www.alarmcontracts.com *************************** CONCIERGE LAWYER SERVICE PROGRAM FOR THE ALARM INDUSTRY - You can check out the program and sign up here: https://www.kirschenbaumesq.com/page/concierge or contact our Program Coordinator Stacy Spector, Esq at 516 747 6700 x 304. *********************** WEBINARS:https://www.kirschenbaumesq.com/page/alarm-webinars *********************** ALARM ARTICLES: You can always read our Articles on our website at www.kirschenbaumesq.com/page/alarm-articles updated daily ************************* THE ALARM EXCHANGE - the alarm industries leading classified and business exchange - updated daily. https://www.kirschenbaumesq.com/page/alarm-exchange ************************* Wondering how much your alarm company is worth? Click here: https://www.kirschenbaumesq.com/page/what-is-my-alarm-company-worth ****************************** Getting on our email list / Articles archived: Many of you are forwarding these emails to friends or asking that others be added to the list. Sign up for our daily newsletter here: Sign Up. ************************** Ken Kirschenbaum,Esq Kirschenbaum & Kirschenbaum PC Attorneys at Law 200 Garden City Plaza Garden City, NY 11530 516 747 6700 x 301 ken@kirschenbaumesq.com www.KirschenbaumEsq.com
