Although most customers opt for a cellular solution, ProTech has converted some customers to IP. “One of the advantages of IP is the speed of transmission,†McKimm notes. “A digital dialer will take a longer time to dial up the central station. IP is almost instantaneous.â€
ProTech uses DMP for its IP transmitters and uses Security Associates of Arlington Heights, Ill., for monitoring.
Another security dealer that recently installed its first IP transmitter to address concerns related to VoIP is All-Safe Fire & Burglar Alarm of Florida, N.Y. The company put in the transmitter for a customer with a newly constructed home that its installers had pre-wired. While installers were at the site putting in some wireless transmitters to accommodate windows that were not included in the original design, they saw a Cablevision truck drive up. “We noticed them putting in a black modem box,†explains All-Safe CEO Robert Merrihue.
An All-Safe representative discussed the situation with the customer. “We told him either he had to go through an Internet module or he had to sign off that he would not hold us liable if the system won’t communicate,†Merrihue says.
All-Safe charged the customer about $200 extra to add an IP transmitter from Honeywell Security, which is monitored by Nationwide Digital Monitoring of Staten Island, N.Y., via a link through Honeywell’s AlarmNet monitoring station. “We’ve had zero problems,†notes Merrihue, adding that the system is programmed to signal trouble by day and alarm by night if it loses communication.