Magnum Alert 900 and Touch Tone Dialing

The 900 is a chip programed panel. It has the capability of touch tone dialing. However, there is still no guarantee that after this is programed, that the panel will communicate with your central station. If your installer doesn't know what to do, it's likely that your account may have changed hands and the new company doesn't have the knowledge, capability or the chip programer to make the changes necessary. If I were you, I'd persue it with them more forcefully. If they're collecting your monthly monitoring fee, they should have the ability to service your account, regardless of how old it is. If they can't, get someone who can. Just curious, what's the name of the company?

NOPE!

maybe work.

| > Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. | >

| > Mike | >

| | |

Aside from the VoIP un-reliablility issue.

Why would you think that the client had reasonable cause to breech a contract, when the client changed something after the fact which causes the alarm to not function properly? Granted a reasonable alarmco will try to make accomodations, but think about it...I rip my phone line out of my house so the alarm can't contact the CS...that's not a valid reason to claim the alarmco is not servicing me and terminate the agreement.

"Bob Worthy" wrote in message news:qLf0f.5912$ snipped-for-privacy@bignews4.bellsouth.net... | | "Mike" wrote in message | news: snipped-for-privacy@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... | > I have a Magnum Alert 900 system in my house and just switched to | > Voice-Over-IP service through Optimum Voice (Cablevision). The system | > will no longer call the central office. After some testing I found out | > that the alarm box is set for pulse dialing. The VOIP service that I | > have will not place a pulse call. Can this system be switched to touch | > tone dialing and if so how? I tried calling the alarm company and | > getting someone on the phone who knows what they are talking about is | > difficult. | >

| > Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. | | Is this alarm company strictly a monitoring company or do they have local | service representation? If so, they should be able to support your system. | My advice would be to go back to them and get a bottom line answer. If they | cannot support your system, they cannot hold you to any agreement and then | find someone who can support it. Your situation needs to be addressed by a | service technician with the proper tools. Secondly, consider keeping a | basic, no frills regular phone line. There are to many questions about the | reliability of VOIP, when there are security issues, such as power outages, | loss of cable service, phone line configurations, modem relocation, the VOIP | provider periodically downloading new formats and possibly even not being | able to connect to the real "911" emergeny service. When you loose cable, | you will loose telephone, but what the heck, you have a cell so it isn't a | big deal, right? Well, you have lost your security, possibly fire, if you | have smokes attached and medical if there is an elderly person that might | need it. Cable is the last to get back on line in any kind of diaster. Read | your agreement with the provider and notice all of what they are **not** | responsible for, including your security requirements. All I can invision, | when these things pop up, is a bunch of guys sitting around with some new | found technology and all of a sudden six new companys are formed and no one | has considered any of the down sides prior to offering it to the public. I | have yet to see this marketed properly, but they sure spent some money on | the small printed disclaimers to protect themselves against all that isn't | said upfront in their advertising ie: loss of commuication or emergency | service. Keep a land line. | | | |

"Mike" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

Is this alarm company strictly a monitoring company or do they have local service representation? If so, they should be able to support your system. My advice would be to go back to them and get a bottom line answer. If they cannot support your system, they cannot hold you to any agreement and then find someone who can support it. Your situation needs to be addressed by a service technician with the proper tools. Secondly, consider keeping a basic, no frills regular phone line. There are to many questions about the reliability of VOIP, when there are security issues, such as power outages, loss of cable service, phone line configurations, modem relocation, the VOIP provider periodically downloading new formats and possibly even not being able to connect to the real "911" emergeny service. When you loose cable, you will loose telephone, but what the heck, you have a cell so it isn't a big deal, right? Well, you have lost your security, possibly fire, if you have smokes attached and medical if there is an elderly person that might need it. Cable is the last to get back on line in any kind of diaster. Read your agreement with the provider and notice all of what they are **not** responsible for, including your security requirements. All I can invision, when these things pop up, is a bunch of guys sitting around with some new found technology and all of a sudden six new companys are formed and no one has considered any of the down sides prior to offering it to the public. I have yet to see this marketed properly, but they sure spent some money on the small printed disclaimers to protect themselves against all that isn't said upfront in their advertising ie: loss of commuication or emergency service. Keep a land line.

Bingo ! I second that (and third that as well). From all the investigation I have done, VoIP will not work reliably enough to ever be counted on for security purposes. I'd be very suspicious of any company that says they can do it reliably, or suggest "it is not problem for us". ADT just issued a memo to all their dealers telling them to stay far away from it. TCPIP however, is quite another thing, and with the advent of products like the generic Lobenn (and others of it's ilk...DSC's version etc), all should be well.

VoIP ? Forget it ! Keep your landline or use a reliable alternate (cell, alarmnet, or TCPIP)

RHC

Switching your alarm to tone dialing is an option in installer programming. Your alarmco should be able to download this feature over a regular POTS line. VOIP offers tremendous savings on your long distance but major headaches with older alarm equipment. The bad news is I don't think your alarm will communicate over VOIP no matter what your alarmco does. VOIP is also subject to outages (including power failures unless you're using a UPS). I always recommend my customers keep their existing POTS line for emergencies and alarm monitoring purposes. In fact, most VOIP providers also sugggest this. Good luck!!

You will have to replace your alarm system.

You can get the panel to dial touchtone, but the communication format must be ContactID to work, which your MA900 does not support.

Jim Rojas

I agree even without the "long" term contract...any term contract. At least my contract states that the condition of, or paying for a working telecommunications connection is the client's responsibility...except if they are also paying for Uplink...that's my responsibility since I maintain ownership of the radios.

| > Why would you think that the client had reasonable cause to breech a | > contract, when the client changed something after the fact which causes | > the | > alarm to not function properly? Granted a reasonable alarmco will try to | > make accomodations, but think about it...I rip my phone line out of my | > house | > so the alarm can't contact the CS...that's not a valid reason to claim the | > alarmco is not servicing me and terminate the agreement. | >

| >

| >

| > | > Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. | > | | > | Is this alarm company strictly a monitoring company or do they have | > local | > | service representation? If so, they should be able to support your | > system. | > | My advice would be to go back to them and get a bottom line answer. If | > they | > | cannot support your system, they cannot hold you to any agreement and | > then | > | find someone who can support it. Your situation needs to be addressed by | > a | > | service technician with the proper tools. Secondly, consider keeping a | > | basic, no frills regular phone line. There are to many questions about | > the | > | reliability of VOIP, when there are security issues, such as power | > outages, | > | loss of cable service, phone line configurations, modem relocation, the | > VOIP | > | provider periodically downloading new formats and possibly even not | > being | > | able to connect to the real "911" emergeny service. When you loose | > cable, | > | you will loose telephone, but what the heck, you have a cell so it isn't | > a | > | big deal, right? Well, you have lost your security, possibly fire, if | > you | > | have smokes attached and medical if there is an elderly person that | > might | > | need it. Cable is the last to get back on line in any kind of diaster. | > Read | > | your agreement with the provider and notice all of what they are

**not** | > | responsible for, including your security requirements. All I can | > invision, | > | when these things pop up, is a bunch of guys sitting around with some | > new | > | found technology and all of a sudden six new companys are formed and no | > one | > | has considered any of the down sides prior to offering it to the public. | > I | > | have yet to see this marketed properly, but they sure spent some money | > on | > | the small printed disclaimers to protect themselves against all that | > isn't | > | said upfront in their advertising ie: loss of commuication or emergency | > | service. Keep a land line. | > | | > | | > | | > | | >

| >

| |

I guess if you call long distance a lot it might pay off...but with free family cell plans I cant see how. My wife talks to her sisters back east every weekend for hours (the whole clan is on Verizon) and cost us nothing. Even on my office line long distance is cheep cheep...i think 5 cents a minute anywhere, something like that. They get ya on 411 calls though! sheesh.

I know your question was addressed to Bob, but I'm going to jump in here anyway. I would think, if the client signed a long term contract and THEN at his initiative, got rid of his line, he would still be committed. Simply because the monitoring is no longer reliable (or possibly even functional) because of his getting rid of the land line, and going to VoIP, doesn't change his original contractual commitment one iota after the fact...

I often have clients tell me when I refuse to hook them up over VoIP, that other companies promise to do so. Of that I have no doubt, but I always advise these people to refuse to sign a long term commitment with these companies. Why should they commit to any company long term, when the company can't reliably commit to them that things will work (and continue to work) the way they are supposed to? I also suggest that they have the company program in daily tests, and tell the client to stay on top of these tests with the monitoring station (with or without the alarmco's involvement). If you can't trust the alarmco to tell it to you straight up front, how can you rely on them to follow through with you on "failure to communicate" signals ?

From my perspective, I simply won't compromise the clients system for the sake of a few bucks a month. Nor do I believe that the problem will ever be "solved" to the level of reliability needed for an alarm system. But there will always be some companies that will hook them up for the additional revenue, whether it's reliable or not...so be it !!

These guys should take a lesson from ADT who call it right on the money.....

RHC

programming.

Uh Frank it's a Magnum Alert 900

Contact ID doesn't always work in fact 4/2 seems to work better

Yes, quite right !! I just reread my contract (it's been awhile), and even though it is only month to month, it also says much the same thing. I just hate losing clients because they wish to go with VoIP. Hell, for $5 a month, they can have basically unlimited long distance calling on their Bell line, so what's the real savings really....

RHC

they're saying they have it up here.

The MA-900 can use DTMF (touch tone) dialing. However, it may not be able to communicate with the central monitoring station anyway. There have been numerous discussions in this newsgroup about alarm system digital communicators not working reliably through VoIP services.

There are some central monitoring services which use a work-around to get past the VoIP service. Check with NextAlarm for starters.

Side note: Some of the other posters here have a bit of an axe to grind concerning companies like NextAlarm due to the extremely competitive rates they charge. Take any diatribes with a crystal of sodium chloride. :^)

That is not surprising. VoIP is a relatively new communications medium. Many alarm companies maight not have had much exposure to it yet.

If you can't get the matter resolved short of returning to POTS telephone service, give me a call during the day and I'll put you in touch with someone who can help.

Don't be too sure, Robert. You can be fairly certain that alarm manufacturers are working on this already. The telecommunications universe is evolving faster than many other fields. Alarm manufacturers have two choices: develope VoIP compatible communicators or become obsolete.

There are workarounds though they sound a bit less secure than a conventional line.

I'll be experimenting with several systems over VoIP service shortly. I'm changing my company's phone system into a "virtual office" space. We'll have a single number to dial and an auto-attendant to distribute calls between employees in three US states plus one office in Brazil. The new system will allow us to instantaneously transfer a caller between stations anywhere in the world.

It appears that VoIP is not quite ready for prime time when it comes to alarm system digital communicators. However, I expect we'll be seeing improvements in that area soon enough. Meanwhile, if your VoIP service includes a second port which is optimized for analog fax service you might want to try sending alarm signals over that line. I plan to test that shortly using DSC, Elk and Napco panels I have on hand and will let you know if it works.

Yes, I've seen the Next Alarm writeup. Seems it might be a solution; however, it's not available in Canada

I hope that things do improve with VoIP to the point where it is genuinely usable with alarm panels. It's no solution at all to simply dismiss the problem, although quite honestly, at the moment, a land line IS the only solution if you want reliability as part of your alarm communication connection. ADT have a greater vested interest than anyone here due to the sheer size of their customer base, and they say quite bluntly, no connection over VoIP is currently acceptable. If you do find a solution to the issue, please let us know how it works out, because for the moment, I have no option but to tell my clients, there is no solution (and that's NOT an acceptable answer....)

Signed...Frustrated as hell...

RHC

That's because you DON'T have phone service anymore... You should reactivate your phone service to maintain reliable 911 and alarm communications......... Good Luck, Russ