Re: Monitoring station response time

["Andrew" <bewareofcabbage@xxxxxxxxx>]

That is a bit long - I work in a comparitively small monitoring centre
in New Zealand and I do know that even once the alarm has hung up from
the receiver - there is a short delay of may 10-15 seconds for the
monitoring software to perform the lookups.

In an alarm case: client details, event template, zone before
generating an activation on-screen.  This time can vary depending on
the signal traffic (note: be kind, dont flood your CS with runaway
signals).

However we endeavour to achieve or better the NZSA (NZ Security
Association) guidelines depending upon the type of activation.  These
are broken into several priorities and response times begin once the
activation is displayed by the monitoring software:

High Priority: Maximum time to commence response 1 minute
i. Duress / panic: Possibly forced to disarm alarm or suspicious person
seen
ii. Hold-up alarm: Person(s) demanding money/property with threats of
violence.
iii. Raid alarm: Person(s) demanding money/property with threats of
violence.
iv. Fire alarm: Alarm from dedicated fire detection equipment
v. Medical alarms

Asset Threatening: Maximum time to commence response 3 minutes
i. Intruder/Tamper alarm: Security system alert including space, glass
break, and door detectors,
ii. Plant alarm: Includes temperature alarms, equipment stoppage alerts
iii. System failure: Battery fail, isolates and trouble alarms

Schedule violations: Maximum time to commence response 20 minutes
i. Irregular open: Alarm disarmed outside scheduled hours
ii. Late to open: Alarm not disarmed by designated open time
iii. Early close: Alarm armed before scheduled close time
iv. Late to close: Alarm failed to arm by scheduled close time

Subsistence / System alarms: Maximum time to commence response 60
minutes
i. Power failure: Power to the alarm system has been lost
ii. Failed Timer Test: Scheduled test signal not received

Luckily we use a modern system backed by SQL - whereas older stations
will find it difficult to process signals quickly with old software and
hardware.