The Risks of Phone Line Monitoring
If your alarm system still uses a phone line to communicate, your safety could be at risk.
Your monitored alarm system was installed to protect your people, property, and assets. But installing the equipment is not always enough. Alarms must make it to fire or police authorities to truly keep you safe.
In this post, we will cover why making the move to newer technology is imperative now, the implications of using phone lines for alarm monitoring, and the benefits of network and cellular communication.
It’s time to pull the plug on phone lines
Plain old telephone service (POTS) refers to the analog phone service that has been used over the last 100 years for things like wired copper telephone lines, fax machines, ATMs, emergency callboxes, DSL, and alarm systems. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) deregulated POTS in August 2022, relinquishing control to providers to choose who will continue to receive service and how much they will pay for their lines. Most importantly, in an article from RCN Technologies, we learn that providers can now shut down lines at any time with or without notice.
Organizations still relying on POTS need to act fast to avoid service disruptions, financial burdens, and a lapse in security coverage. And as phone carriers continue to replace POTS with digital, IP-based phone lines, it is important to know that these options are NOT compatible with alarm systems.
4 implications of phone line communication
Unreliable – Phone lines experience frequent outages, delays or failures in alarm notification and dispatch, and are vulnerable to malicious intent with one simple cut
Expensive – Traditional analog land lines are becoming more expensive since the recent FCC deregulation mentioned above
Incompatible - Due to their higher costs, traditional analog land lines are being replaced with less expensive IP-based phone lines which are not compatible with alarm systems
Inconvenient – Working from home makes it a challenge to be onsite when issues arise and phone lines are not capable of remote access to your system
5 benefits of network & cellular communication
Abandoning phone line monitoring for your alarm system is crucial. There are network and cellular communication upgrades available that provide:
Increased reliability; minimizing disruptive failure notifications and lack of dispatch during a REAL emergency
Faster transmission of alarms during a critical moment; decreasing police/fire response time and minimizing damage and theft
Convenient mobile and cloud-based apps; allowing visibility to onsite activity, remote arm/disarm, and user code management from wherever you are
Affordability; bypassing the need for expensive and unreliable phone lines
Increased safety and security; these options cannot be destroyed by simply cutting a cord and are supervised for functionality multiple times per minute vs. once a day with phone lines
Need help exploring the options?
We know that updating aged technology is not always exciting and results in unplanned expenses. We can help you leverage newer technology while minimizing the cost so you can protect the things that matter most.