Re: Dialing 911/Monitoring Conflict...

["Mel" <Respond@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You don't have a cell phone?

Bob

"David Pinero" <thedave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:47l1915t1390ma0imrmr1rcsqtisjp1ucs@xxxxxxxxxx
>
> I've wondered about this for years (even as an alarm monitoring clerk
> back in the day).  Recent advertisements on TV by alarm companies have
> got me thinking again.
>
> Is it really the *safest* thing to "give up" your residential phone
> line to the alarm company in the middle of the night, following an
> alarm activation?  One commercial has an alarm monitoring operator
> calling a panicked woman to check on the alarm status.  She tells the
> operator that "someone just kicked in her door", and so I find myself
> thinking that the last thing *I* would want in a situation like that
> is to have my alarm system, or a responding monitoring operator,
> preventing me from dialing 911 myself.  911 is much more efficient at
> tracing the call back to one's exact address and subsequently
> responding if the call gets cut off.  By advertising with such
> scenarios, an alarm company is essentially telling would-be customers
> that it is better to have the process of them injecting theme selves
> into a known emergency, than a 911 center.  And I just can't agree
> with that.  True, the somewhat unspoken assumption is that you CAN'T
> call 911, but the commercials that are prompting me here clearly
> demonstrate a scenario where someone could.
>
> Wouldn't it be better that the installation of a secondary phone line
> dedicated to the alarm system be mandatory, or that a system only use
> radio to communicate in the first place?  Or, perhaps, that monitoring
> companies use cell phone call-back numbers instead of fixed line ones?
> The alarm company could still contact me for all the benefits usually
> associated with that process, but I wouldn't lose the option,
> efficiency, or benefits, of calling a 911 center directly.
>
> Dave