No Phone line?  Thinking Of Using VoIP?
Concerned about line cuts by an intruder?      You Should Be……

Whether you are thinking of saving some money and cancelling your traditional telephone line service, or worried about what happens if someone cuts the phone line or broadband connection at the side of your house, you can take a sigh of relief in knowing that an active land line of any kind is no longer required for your security provider to perform reliable alarm monitoring services for home or business security.

As a Toronto Alarm & Locksmith service provider and owner of Pre-lock Security we strongly recommend taking advantage of the benefits of our new DSC 3G-3070 or our Honeywell 4G Intellipath series Cellular GSM Transmitters.  When we upgrade your alarm system to increase your home security with either one of these units you will no longer require a standard telephone line for connectivity for security purposes.

Alternative communications methods are critical in the security marketplace due to VoIP Customers looking to migrate from POTS lines and global growth of digital telephone line networks in Toronto.

With the introduction of our new DSC 3G-3070 long range radio cellular monitoring packages or our New Honeywell GSM communicator your security system will communicate effectively using a secure, dual path cellular network when we install the Honeywell L5100 LYNX Touch dual path wireless security system that includes two separate AlarmNet alarm monitoring communicators to provide both Internet and cellular alarm communications at the same time.  Some security provider have be advertising this level of communications as unique and exclusive when in fact it is available by almost every professional security provider and supported by both DSC & Honeywell security products.  I am personally not a great fan of  dual path technology as it is also can be easily defeated as can a standard telephone line connection by simply cutting the outside cable.

The L5100–WIFI Internet alarm communicator connects wirelessly to your internet router with an encrypted high security code and the GSMVLP5-4G cellular alarm communicator connects wirelessly to an advanced 4G cellular network and is online with our ULC listed monitoring station around the clock.

Pre-Lock Security does however offer the L5100PK-WIFI-4G dual path wireless security system that combines the speed of the Internet with the reliability of cellular communications.  As both communications are 100% wireless the only wired connection we have to make is literally plugging in the control panel power supply into a standard wall outlet and locking in the set screw to prevent accidental unplugging of the alarm control panel transformer.

VoIP is becoming very popular and more and more inquires are received each day about compatibility of alarm monitoring services in regards to home or business security.

Unlike traditional Bell & Rogers POTS telephone lines, VoIP uses your internet connection to enable you to place and receive calls using your broadband communication path.

Your DSC or Honeywell alarm system is designed by the manufacture to transmit any alarm fault including burglary or fire signals to the monitoring station over an analog phone line which was used by every telecommunication company back in the day, however intruders are up to speed on how to defeat this primitive technology that truly never was designed to actually provide supervised security services and only used by alarm companies to transmit the signals to central stations across Canada.

In order for your alarm system to provide your home and family with reliable communications you need the alarm control panel to be able to send any emergency signals properly over VoIP line which unfortunately is a hit and miss scenario depending on the VoIP provider compression ratio which is always subject to change and can not be relied on by security providers like we did standard telephone line systems.   Your DSC or Honeywell control panel does not have the ability to convert the packets of information from analog to digital at the VOIP modem box and then convert back to analog along the phone network path.   During this process is where problems usually  develop depending on the compression ratio and VoIP service provider you are using.

To add to the problem wrong information may be in the channel of communications from the VoIP network and the possibility is very high for errors in the signals being received at the station to fail causing the monitoring center to receive the wrong information and possibly sending out a fire truck when you have a low battery or non emergency event being understood totally wrong with no effective response when needed the most.

Using VoIP for essential communications is not recommend by us and should only be considered only after speaking with your alarm provider to insure arrangements are made to upgrade the alarm panel to provide reliable alarm monitoring services.  Most VoIP services will also not allow you to even send a simple fax transmission either which shows you how real the problem is.  Although fax machines are becoming a thing from the past, your security system must be properly configured to insure your home and family can have the kind of security you really need.

All our alarm systems are configured with a battery backup system to power your alarm system and the peripheral devices attached in the event of a power failure to insure contiguous protection during those periods, however we did not have to worry about alarm companies using traditional analog Pots lines as those would still work during a power failure condition.  Using VoIP phone service may also create a problem as most such services do not operate during a power failure, as both your VoIP modem and your internet router require constant power to be able to make a phone call and if you were going to rely on a standard VoIP line for alarm transmission you would need to make sure that the VoIP system in your home was able to stay active in the event your alarm system required to transmit a signal to your central monitoring station.

VoIP services are generally more sensitive to problems causing home owners to experience many dropped calls or unable to clearly have a  conversation requiring you to repeat your conversation.  A standard alarm panel will not be able to do and deliver the intended emergency messages to your alarm monitoring center.  Similar to a normal conversation on the phone, your alarm panel may be in the process of sending vital packets of data to the monitoring center when the call is dropped missing packets of data that are vital for proper understanding of the transmission.

This will obviously impact our ability to send the appropriate emergency responder to your home and family in a real emergency.  Some possible explanations of this are fluctuations in bandwidth from your VoIP provider and problems with your broadband provider blocking your phone caller ID causing inconsistencies for the VoIP signals to work properly in our central station receivers.

Regardless of the signal getting through the odd time, the problem still exists for the VoIP or Cable based broadband communications to be cut or disabled by a potential intruder either before entry to your home or shortly after kicking in the front door and running to the panel to defeat the signal transmission from the inside of your home which would stop the alarms ability to communicate with the monitoring center and you would not receive any emergency response of any kind in this scenario which is why we prefer completely wireless transmission for your home security as broadband connections can be cut from the outside just like a standard POTS line and although Pre-Lock Security does offers dual path commutations the signal that is going to provide the security in this case is the wireless transmission so why invest in a technology that also can not be relied on for your overall security transmission and can be as easily defeated as a standard phone line.

As a expert Toronto Locksmith I  encourage our Pre-lock Security “soon to be ” VoIP customers to consider adding our cellular backup to allow for reliable trouble free monitoring services available for both DSC and Honeywell control panels.  Our long range radio units will provide your direct link to our monitoring center and not require VoIP, landline or cable based broadband communications of any kind.

We also recommend customers that are considering VoIP telephone line communications as a replacement for standard telephone lines consider also adding a UPS power supply to insure you can properly power the modem, cordless phone and router during a power failure which most homeowners forget to do in the event you are able to pick up the phone and need to call 911.

Please feel free to call one or our representatives for more information on how easy it is to upgrade your existing security system, and how easy it is to switch your services over to Pre-Lock Security.

Please call us today at (416) 773-5625 or fill out our convenient contact form and we will provide you a confidential no obligation security evaluation.