This high-powered paging amplifier adds loud ringing, voice paging and background music to VoIP SIP hosted phone service or a premise-based PBX. 

Was an officer justified in shooting two service dogs during a burglar alarm incident?

A family restaurant misrepresented their fire mitigation safeguards to their insurance company, and were denied coverage after a fire.

An assisted living community consisting of several buildings, one of which was used as a residential personal facility for the elderly, experienced a tragic fire. The sprinkler system was protected by a fire protection monitoring service, which had merged with the defendant.

When SDM put out its inaugural issue in January, 1971, the security industry as we know it today did not exist. There were no trade shows, no systems integrators, no DIY systems and no reliable publications to turn to for information.

When I first entered the security industry in 1973, alarm communications were performed by Direct Wire, McCulloh and some high security applications using voice-grade telephone lines configured in “open window” and later “closed window” bridges.

At last, 2021 is here — I can’t be the only one happy to leave 2020 in the dust! The year brought so many changes to the business of monitoring, our heads haven’t stopped spinning. With the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unemployment numbers that unfortunately came along with it, providing peace of mind has never been more important.

To say 2020 was a bit of a roller coaster ride is perhaps an understatement. At this time last year, most security integrators anticipated a strong 2020, only to be thrown into turmoil late in the first quarter by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As we celebrate our 50th anniversary this month, we thought it would be fitting to look back at the first Sales Stars column Brian Offenberger wrote for SDM back in 2015.