Security System and self monitoring

Most municipalities forbid dialers with voice messages to be transmitted to police/fire/911 etc. If you want dispatch you'll have to go through monitoring station.

You can program most alarms to page you on your pager, though this has it's quirks. You can also purchase a voice module that will transmit message to your cell phone...of course if it doesnt get through to your cell you wont get the message. There are a lot of drawbacks to "self-monitoring".

No...Brinks, ADT etc, do not send voice messages to 911. In my area our central stations are given special phone numbers to dial into for dispatch...not 911, and not end-user numbers.

Do you intend to install this yourself, or try to find an installing company that will install a "local" alarm system? You may have trouble if the latter is true.

hth

RH,

What does this mean: "14.95 monthly plus GST ($16)" ? Is GST a tax?

Almost as messy as here.

When I sell a system I have to charge State & City sales tax - state is same, but each city is different.

When I sell monitoring I have to charge telecommunications tax, but only by city.

Now...here's the kicker...I operate in 10+ cities and all have different sales/telecommunications tax....pain in the butt...every 19th of the month it's a mad scramble to calculate all this crap.

Oh yeah, and some cities (the smaller ones) have their tax collected by the state (they all should it would simplify stuff for us).

Dunno. I won't do VOIP, and I don't have interenet monitoring set up yet - should be any day now.

That's an interesting question though. I wonder if VOIP users are paying tele taxes presently? I would think so..but dunno.

Sir, I won't comment on the idea of "self monitoring" other than to refer you to a page that might or might not provide some useful thoughts on the matter. If you require a system that is non monitored, you likely will have to search out a local company that does this, or do it yourself.

Yeah, its a General Sales Tax of 7% that all Canadians are screwed with and applies to pretty much everything we buy....on top of a myriad of other taxes, which makes us one of the most heavily taxed countries in the world....:(( So if we initially pay something for a product, then we pay a Provincial tax of 8% on it, then the GST is applied to both the original item AND the PST, so we are taxed on tax. Monitoring however, doesn't require PST.

RHC

So . . . you can pay for your health care (and other benefits) a little bit at a time (in GST) or (as in the USA) you can pay for it in insurance premiums, co-pays, etc. running to many thousands of dollars a year (perhaps even thousands a month: we're paying well over $1000 a month, and I don't doubt that some people are paying even more).

Perce

On 09/09/05 11:58 am R.H.Campbell tossed the following ingredients into the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

I doubt very much of the GST goes towards our health care system. If it did, we wouldn't have the problems we do with the system. Instead they p*ss it away on lots of "feel good" programs that only serve to buy them votes in the next election. The GST and the revenue collected from road tax go into that endless pot of taxpayers money that forms the trough that our parliamentary pigs feed on...

RHC

In my community the 911 system will not accept automated calls for response. There has to be a person on the other end of the line. If you try using an automated system you may get a response, but you will also get a fine.

The central station monitoring companies use a 'call list', and if they don't get a response from the number(s) on the call list then they call the police (or fire, or whatever).

There are self-monitored systems available. Try Google.

That's right for now, voip don't pay into the systems they are using. That's changing. PSTN is now open to voip but they have to pay like everyone else. So those low voip rates are going up if you want 9-1-1 service. Add another buck or two a month. Number portability has become a issue when people find out they can port to voip but voip didn't have to port to another service. People complain and now voip will have to pay and provide for the service, add another dollar or 2 a month. Connectivity was favorable to voip since they could lease local lines at a cost lower from what the phone company paid to maintain them. That's gone with the last FCC ruling. Voip must pay market rates. Add another dollar or 2 to the monthly bill. Let's not forget that voip has ZERO standards that they have to meet. If state and federal agencies get too many complaints they will want to cover their cost and that means voip paying just like the phone company. Voip is cheap 'cause it's not phone service, anyone who thinks it is or that it will conquer the world is full of it. Voip is getting a second look now that people have been nearly killed using it and because it's not "REAL" phone service, and rates are going up as they start paying their way and the free rides end.

Do you have to charge "telecommunications tax" when the monitoring link is internet only or VoIP?

The client only saves on long distance right? You still have to have a network connection and pay for that right?

Yah I did leave that part out .. and if it doesnt release the line it could be really bad. It's not permitted in these here parts.

Alex:

company, you might come out ahead financially, as well as enjoy the benefits of professional monitoring. The online monitoring companies charge around $108 per year (assuming annual payment), but by having a monitored alarm system, I'm saving about $160 per year in insurance premiums. So, I'm netting about $50 per year. Your results might vary, since there are a lot of variables that determine insurance premiums. Further, if you pay $40+ per month to ADT or Brinks for monitoring, then obviously the economics are different.

Rob

I've wondered about this. For instance, up until a couple of years ago, VoIP wasn't important. The standard Telco bills run rampant with surcharges, state and Fed taxes, and fees. And on cell phones, a 911 surcharge and some such other surcharge to help pay for people to have cellular service in rural areas, so I am told.(Wha ?)

If VoIP is not taxable, and it begins to seriously compete with the Telcos, ........... Somewhere, sometime, someone, is going to miss the revenue and ...... guess what's going to get taxed? I'm also waiting for the tax revenue to be missed by all of the internet purchases. Anyone want to make bets on when that little balloon is going to burst?

Isn't it all just a case of ......... (whisper) Let's just let them all get used to using it, until they can't do without it and it becomes a necessity. THENNNNN we'll REALLY blast them with more taxes and surcharges than we ever could of charged doin it the old way. (Chuckle, chuckle, wringing hands with a greedy, sinister grin)

Nope, they're not. The FCC said last year and in subsequent rulings that VoIP is an "unregulated information service" and not subject to traditional state public utility control or oversight.

I disagree. VoIP providers like Vonage spend millions every month on telephone service. Any VoIP call to a standard telephone line requires a conventional phone line at some point.

AFAIK< that's not correct, friend. 911 service is not subject to extra charges.

IME conventional telcos have rarely met the established standards. As to price increases, that's just part of telecommunications service -- no matter what type of line you choose.

Huh? Cost of getting consumer complaints??? Every state DPUC I've ever known mainly ignores consumer complaints. They do an excellent job of rubber-stamping telco rate hike requests though.

Those of us who actually use VoIP every day might tend to disagree with you. I've had the service for over a year. At first there were major quality and reliability issues so I only used it as an overflow for my POTS lines.

The service has improved to the point where it is now *almost* as good as conventional telco service. It won't work at all if the power fails so it isn't as safe as a POTS line. Digital alarm monitoring signals seem to have trouble using VoIP too so it's not ideal for that purpose either. However, as a voice telecom service it's excellent. It's also much less expensive than POTS.

The near future will, IMO, see a significant growth in VoIP usage. I'm particularly interested in developing services, such as auto-attendant system.

Can't afford the broad speed Internet service that VoIP requires, eh?

Crash, you left out the part about the big fat fine a homeowner will get if their system automatically dials 911...

Voip providers do pay for telco lines but they paid the regulated competition rate for access lines. Since the FCC said they are not phone service, they are no longer entitled to the super discounted rate mandated to open local phone service to competition. So they didn't want to be regulated as a phone service but wanted the cheap cost of being a competing phone service. Can't have it both ways. Damn good the judge rule they must pay market rates and can't ride the coat tails of competitor pricing if they also claim to not be a phone company. Get out the checkbook.

Now Mr. Robert, 911 service is NOT free. It cost to operate the PSTN and every POTS and Cell customer pays to maintain it. Voip wants to use it, let them pay like everyone else. Oh so they have to pay and raise rates, gee too bad!

You said it best; it's almost as good. But in an emergency almost isn't good enough! Vonage hid behind the cheap rates and didn't even tell people that their service was sub-standard and NOT at all like POTS service. It took the hellish attack in Texas for them to admit to their customers that they really didn't have phone service so 911 didn't really work. Now they are complaining (like all voip providers) that they may not be able to meet the requirement to have their customer's acknowledge the shortfalls in voip. They are even complaining that the cost to access PSTN will force them to raise rate. Small voip providers said they may be forced to stop offering voip service because of cost. Voip dodged the bullet when those folks survived, imagine if they both died? It's not funny but how much did those folks save considering their ordeal? What did they do when they were attacked, they picked up their phone and dialed 9-1-1. What they got was nothing, the nothing that came with using an "unregulated information service" over REAL phone service.

If voip wants to act like a phone company they need to pay like a phone company. All voip has to offer is cheap rates and now they are pissed cause they have to pay for what they were hoping would be free to them.

Just to let you know, I have high speed internet and my POTS line is free, but I still pay the surcharges and fees associated with maintaining the public service portion of my service. If I have to pay, so should voip.