Re: question about VOIP and liability

[J. <jsloud2001<removeme>@netscape.net>]

On 26 Aug 2006 08:00:51 -0700, robertlbass@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>
>I remember when I was just getting started nearly 30 years ago "high
>security" systems used leased telephone lines to connect to the
>monitoring facility or, in some cases, to the police department.  When
>the telcos stopped offering new leased lines the industry fretted over
>the loss of secure lines (as though leased lines weren't easy to
>subvert).  Eventually, most installations went to digital
>communication, sometimes backed up by RF telemetry and later via
>cellular.  As I recall the sky didn't fall.  I doubt it will this time
>either.

Leased lines offer something that is impossible to do with digital
communicators: Line security.  While this isn't critically important
to 99% of alarm users out there, it is very important to customers who
need intrusion detection systems the most.  Two-way supervised radio
is subject to frequent service outages in some areas, and network
communicators are exactly as unreliable as the computer network that
they are connected to.  I was speaking to a DSS rep  eariler this week
about this very issue.  It's a problem.

Before any of you ask who DSS is: see www.dss.mil

J.