central station monitoring in US/Canada?

I cannot speak for Canada, since we don't do anything there, but I will go out on a limb by saying that the procedures are probably very similar. Here in the states, city, county and state goverments have ordinaces, laws in place to govern how alarm activity by a central station is to be handled. Some police departments have made policy for their department as to how to handle alarm activity. This is not a "one shoe fits all" issue. In most locations, a verification call, to the premise, is required prior to dispatching the authorities. In some areas, a second verification call to a cell phone for instance is required. Many disagree with this, however, it is documented by their own departments that the areas in which this requirement has been initiated have experienced a 40-70% decline in unnecessary police dispatches. Some areas have gone to a verification process which is that someone needs to respond to the alarm and call if there is police needed. IMO a very dangerous policy even for security guards. Most are not armed. One of these communities are even considering varification of fire. I feel sorry for the citizens that live in that area.Then there are areas that have a "no response" policy. They are not going, period, to a third party request. These are different ways that different jurisdictions are handling the alarm calls to their cities. Because of the rising amount of installations in all cities, the PD's have had to handle their response differently. It is very political within their city and county governments and their budget plays a huge roll in the decision. One thing is for sure. Those that have opted to go to either verified response or no response have seen an increase in property crimes. Check out

Bob W. "Toxx" wrote in message news:gvh7ue$mll$03$ snipped-for-privacy@news.t-online.com...

Central Station Monitoring in Canada also has a guard response component as an option. Unfortunately (in the Lower Mainland/Vancouver area) we're spread pretty wide which makes using a more local responder/independent guard company a better option. It makes more sense to employ a local independent who has a contracted patrol component to their service and that may actually have a car "in the general area".

In UK, it seems to vary by police area a bit.

The alarm needs to be verified before they'll put in a high priority callout. That can be by the alarm itself, e.g. by having two non-overlapping zones trigger, or by having some other independant verification, such as a phone call, or have the monitoring station listen in to the premises if the alarm has that facility. Alarm needs to meet certain minimum standards too to be used for police/fire callout (and I'm going to be out-of-date on exactly what those are today), although not for just keyholder or security company callout.

In London, my observation is the police do seem to get notification of unverified alarms too (so fast it must be automatic), and if there is an available car nearby, it comes round immediately (usually before any phone call to verify), but I suspect they don't drop everything else to do this if it's unverified. If a neighbor calls the police emergency number too with confirmation of sighting, that will turn an unverified call from the monitoring station into a verified call as far as the police are concerned.

3 false alarms in a rolling 12 month period loses you high priority police response for 12 months from the alarm alone, although verification independant of the alarm monitoring company will still get you a high priority police response.

Bass used to sell central station monitoring to diyers but got shut down for operating without a license. I guess that left his customers hung out to dry.

It depends on the local regulations too. For instance in Nevada you HAVE to send a guard first, if there is a break in the guard will call the police. We have to charge the client for guard response...usually on a per need basis - at least that's how I used to do it up there.

In my state we dispatch the police.

In my state ...... we send a guy named Vito.

In my state ...... we send a guy named Vito.

What happens when he comes down to Florida for the winter to visit "Ma"?

Guido takes over.

Nah....he is to busy flippin' pizzas. Besides the Jamacians and the new Italians.

There's always someone from the "Family" left behind to "take care of business"

In this "Family" every newborn male is given a tatoo on their bicep at the time of Baptisim. It says "pay or die" written under a skull. They grow up and automatically go into the Family business.....which is, "collections"