KEN KIRSCHENBAUM, ESQ
ALARM - SECURITY INDUSTRY LEGAL EMAIL NEWSLETTER / THE ALARM EXCHANGE
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Napco comments on M2M communication failure discussion with options
May 5, 2026
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Napco comments on M2M communication failure discussion with options
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Ken,
This is in response to recent outages reported, regarding some other fire communication providers. While service continuity can be affected by many factors, there are certainly steps that manufacturers can take to mitigate them, i.e., to help deliver more dependable life-safety reporting. I cannot speak for competitors, but the following are the significant safeguards NAPCO StarLink Fire has put in place, continuously refined and evolving, helping to make it the brand choice of some of the largest national fire alarm providers in the country. It’s always advisable that dealers and fire protection professionals understand and carefully research their fire alarm communication platform, and all their equipment choices, to see how they measure up, end to end, to avoid issues and liability exposure for the long run.
NAPCO StarLink Fire Added Assurances:
* NOC location / UL listing. The UL 864 listed NAPCO StarLink NOC (Network Operations Center) resides in a secure, hardened, concrete bunker, inside the NAPCO Headquarters building in Amityville, NY, USA. All services are multi-redundant, including 4 different carriers for outbound telco communications, 3 different IP providers, double redundant backup power systems and quadruple redundant independent air conditioner systems. We saw a couple of years ago how a failed HVAC system can bring down a NOC. NAPCO Engineers are on site to immediately address any concerns that may arise. Some manufacturers choose to maintain unlisted NOCs in commercial space such as AWS or in foreign countries.
* Disaster Recovery Site. NAPCO maintains a geographically diverse Disaster Recovery NOC, collocated within a major data center in Valley Forge, PA, outside of east coast communications, internet access and service infrastructure. If the entire east coast goes dark, a Fully Automated Switchover immediately occurs with full access to the communications infrastructure out of Chicago.
* SOC 2 Certification. The NAPCO NOC has achieved SOC 2 cybersecurity compliance, ensuring cybersecurity protection for discriminating clients, such as financial institutions. The largest banks in the USA, standardized on StarLink Fire, requested SOC 2, and NAPCO spent well over a year achieving this goal. This SOC 2 certification decreases the liability exposure of all NAPCO StarLink Dealers.
Native Cellular Carriers. StarLink Fire ONLY supports direct US corporate native accounts with Verizon and AT&T wireless, using direct secure VPN tunnel connections from the US based carrier to the NAPCO StarLink NOCs. NAPCO believes that aggregator-provided roaming cellular service should never be used for commercial fire life safety communications. All signals MUST stay within the US borders and not be routed to an overseas facility and back to the US, which introduces a single point of failure, negating the redundancy of multiple cellular carriers. The use of native carriers ensures no global hopping, detours of signals, or possible introduction of latency.
I invite anyone who’s interested in comparing their current communicator with StarLink Fire Communicators and service, to please call NAPCO at 1.800.645.9445 or learn more at www.StarLinkFire.com
Tom Karl, VP, Corporate Sales
NAPCO Security Technologies, Inc.
800-645-9445 X 145
tkarl@napcosecurity.com
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Response
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Napco's Starlink is popular and dealers should be looking at the product and service. Fire alarm experts are welcome to share their opinions and reviews of this and all products.
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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
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