While some companies promote alarm systems to call mobiles or SMS messages when alarms are activated to reduce costs by not paying for monitoring, this is the only benefit of this service. Asset Protection Security & Data will provide this as well but we certainly do not recommend it. The cost saved is very minimal, approximately $1 a day.
 

The disadvantages of this included:

 

• Not be available when the alarm activates (in a meeting, movie or dinner)

• Not knowing if your alarm is even working (never tested)

• Not knowing what the alarm is (is it a power outage or intruder)

• Not knowing if an intruder is onsite (multiple alarms)

• Not receiving the SMS for days or ever (telecommunications carriers admit thousands of text never get through)

• Not being covered by insurance
   

Our “Central Monitoring Station” or control rooms are graded to the highest level, Grade A1. (This involves that they be reassessed every two years to ensure they comply with strict standards AS2201.) We have several control rooms as not all control rooms can provide a full range of services that we require for our clients. By connecting your security system to our control room, we can guarantee that if and when your alarm is activated, that the correct action is taken depending of the situation.
 

There are several methods that your alarm system can communicate with our control room.

These include:
 

Digital Dialler (standard telephone line)

The most common and cheapest method of monitoring is achieved using the digital dialler. Digital Diallers allow one-way communication from your security alarm system to our control room, and are used for low to medium security risks.

The system is connected to your existing analogue (PSTN) telephone line. Faults with your telephone line whether intentionally or not make dialler lines the most susceptible to failure, which is why they are not recommended for high risk properties.

 

GSM Dialler (mobile phone)
GSM Dialler is the installation of additional hardware and this includes a mobile phone that requires a SIM card to operate. Ideal for when customers do not need a permanent telephone line or when new estates are established and telephone lines will not be available for some time. These can be a little more expensive to operate than a dialler as the SIM card is required and call costs may be incurred depending on the carrier and what plan or sort of SIM card is used.
 

GPRS(mobile data network)

A GPRS service uses the mobile telephone network and is a data service similar to the EFTPOS machines used in taxi services. The GPRS was introduced to take advantage of new technology and to replace the aging Securitel network. Securitel was a Telstra service that used a pulse over a standard telephone line to check that the telephone line was still working. This was ceased as of January 2010. The GPRS service has the ability to communicate both ways between the security alarm and the control room.

Depending on the risk of your property these communications can be set to occur, from one every 24 hours down to as often as 90 seconds for high risk premises. There are several GPRS service providers available and some offer multiple paths to provide communications to our control room.

The cost of the GPRS services is determined by the suppliers’ hardware and how often the security alarm and the control room communicate (Polling Rate).