Magnum Alert 900 and Touch Tone Dialing

Jim,

Thanks for a straight answer to my question. I did not intend this to turn into a debate on the reliability of VOIP. I completely understand the risks of using VOIP instead of a POTS line and for now am willing to accept those risks. The best way to solve a problem is approach it one step at a time. I know for a fact that the VOIP adapter I have will not make a call using pulse dialing. So switching the box to touch-tone might allow me to use my VOIP service but might not, only testing it will determine that.

Is there a better way that I can explain this to a service tech so they understand what I want?

Thanks, Mike

So true Mark ! Of the clients I have lost because of installation of VoIP, I can only remember one who called me in advance. One other re-installed his land line when told, but most just press on and call me to hook the alarm up, and are surprised when I tell them it can't be done (and won't be done....). And a couple of others, I only found out about through my daily report on "fail to test"...

Sigh....

RHC

Just tell him what you've said here. Change the programing to "touchtone only". You know that it possibly wont work, but it's got to be tried. And, that you're aware that it may not be that reliable. Also tell him to program it for periodic check in. I forget what increments the MA 900 checks in at ..... daily/weekly, but any check in is better than none. Also, with the periodic check in, your central station may charge a little extra a month for the service. Tell the installer that YOU want to be notified if check in fails. Many times the installer will be notified only and will just never "get around" to you, to find out why and you're sitting there thinking everything is working.

If ...... after all this, it proves to not be reliable enough for you, Id suggest that you upgrade the panel but I'd stick with Napco. They've issued a notice that their panels will work over VoIP and I've not had any problems with them over the Optimum network. I haven't heard of any other mfg who's issued a like notice. By the way, changing the panel means also changing the keypads. They're not compatable with the new panels and nowdays, with the alpa-numeric keypads, may add considerable cost to a new system.

Good luck.

DSC issued a statement earlier this year saying their panels *can* communicate properly using VOIP services. They further state that depending on the VOIP provider that some formats may be affected and that for the most part pulse and SIA are unaffected with the Contact ID format being more likely to have problems.

Doug L

I really don't know why, especially since Napco states that contact ID should be used in most cases and DSC states it is the most likely to be affected.

DSC states "The contact ID format is more susceptible to problems because of compression of the signal through the VoIP service"

Doug L

Jim,

Do you think that maybe it isn't the fact that the panels won't work with VOIP but rather that the manufacturers recognize the fact that the functionality of the VOIP equipment is subject to interruptions leaving the communications path for the security intermittent, therefore not making a committment that their eqiupment will work with VOIP. I do know that, on a product we use, we had a system communicating on a Vonage system. The panel would recognize phone line interuption and go into trouble each time the phone dropped out. The panel would communicate fine as long as the phone was working. Along with the panel going into trouble, the custmer recognized the fact that the phones were dropping out. After the hurricane, they didn't have phones for an extended amount of time and when their neighbor didn't loose phones at all during the storm, they went back to Bell.

Why would that be Doug? Is it a speed of transmission issue? This is my weak side with the different formats.

You could have fooled me! Frankly, I straight out don't believe it, nor does this mean it will communicate reliably on an ongoing basis. One day SIA or Contact ID may work, the next it won't. And on other networks, the situation can be quite different with the older pulse formats the way to go.

Frankly, I'm surprised that DSC would make such a statement given that no one can presently provide ANY measure of reliability over VoIP (and believe me, I would dearly love to be shown wrong; this crap is costing me money....)

RHC

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sorry Doug but DSC in this instance is full of shit, SIA is the LEAST likely format that will send with CID being 2nd and 4/2 being the most likely format to work

I've dealt with several dozen DSC 1555's and 832's using VOIP and this has been the case with each in fact I don't think I've ever gotten SIA to work

It could be that many DSC engineers came from Detection Systems.... :)

(running for cover)

WHEEEHOO..... you sure know how to hit below the belt (and man, do you have a good memory.....that was four years ago I was pissed off about their dishonest antics....)

RHC

Bob Worthy wrote:

Wow, that's a long question!

Ans: Idonno!

We've had meetings with the cable company and when you ask the "so called" experts that they send to these meetings, question about what we can and can't expect, we've gone away with no more information then we already had, which is scant. They don't know what frequencies or pulse widths, or tones will or wont pass, they just don't have a clue. The system was designed for voice transmission and if it's not voice, they don't know what it will do. For us, it's hard to believe that they didn't consider all of the other devices attached to a phone line. But ....... on the other hand, they probably DID consider it didn't think it was worth the trouble to find out and figured the end user will either buy it or not. But, they may have figured that if the price difference compared to POTS line is low enough, the consumer WILL buy it, so who cares if something eles doesn't work. They're really not concerned about whether the consumer has a reliable alarm reporting system or not. After providing all of my clients with the negatives of VoIP in my Newsletter for 6 months prior to the mass maketing by the cable company and then requiring clients to sign a waiver, I've had more people keep the VoIP service then not. So it's possible that the cable companys marketing research may have dictated what the optimum selling price would need to be to accomplish this. Can they do that and be that accurate? Or, is it just dumb luck or dumb consumer?

There was one case where I had to go back and remove tel line monitoring, for some reason. The voice communication would work but there was something that the panel was seeing that kept making it go into telephone line fail.

An RF radio engineer once told me the following, with regard to designing wave propagation devices. At this point, I think it also applies to VoIP. " Ten percent is engineering. Ten percent is ingenuity. The rest is pure magic."

It's not, the problem is VOIP has no set standards so something that works with one standard may not work with another.

Someone was telling me yesterday (dunno if it's technically true or not) that the dependability of VoIP depends a lot on what type of network it's on; public or private. That Vonage is going on the public net and is less likely to be reliable than VoIP over private net like a cable company. Not sure I fully understand but just throwing this one out there for comment.

| > > If ...... after all this, it proves to not be reliable enough for you, | > > Id suggest that you upgrade the panel but I'd stick with Napco. They've | > > issued a notice that their panels will work over VoIP and I've not had | > > any problems with them over the Optimum network. I haven't heard of any | > > other mfg who's issued a like notice. | >

| > Jim, | >

| > Do you think that maybe it isn't the fact that the panels won't work with | > VOIP but rather that the manufacturers recognize the fact that the | > functionality of the VOIP equipment is subject to interruptions leaving | the | > communications path for the security intermittent, therefore not making a | > committment that their eqiupment will work with VOIP. | | It's not, the problem is VOIP has no set standards so something that works | with one standard may not work with another. | |

Digital phone service by Brighthouse Cable was down all over Central Florida earlier this week for something like 14 hours. It may have been out all over Florida. No phone service whatsoever on Brighthouse network. I would think that VoIP was out also.......

That's what happens when you use an entertainment company for your life safety needs such as telephone service.

Norm Mugford

I see stuff like that all the time on