Re: Building a Central Station

["ABLE_1" <able1no@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

WoW!!!! the guy ask one simple question and he get a V-E-R-Y-- L-O-N-G and
detailed answer.  What more can you ever ask for.

Excellent job on the response.

Bill needs to be the guy at the top of the list for new hires when the
decision is made to move forward on this project.  Name your price Bill.




> First decide who your customers will be...
>
> What equipment will they have?
>
> Will it be existing equipment and they will be switching to your
> monitoring service or will this be just for new installs?
>
> If just new installs, what equipment?
>
> What services will you provide?
>
> How many customers?
>
> What type of phone lines will be required?
>
> Will you need a private radio tower for company business? Local private
> guard service too?
>
> Then I would suggest meeting with the phone company (a knowledgeable
> engineering type), and inform them of your needs. Ask WHERE you could
> locate such a business. Across the street from a phone company exchange
> might be a good idea! Maybe it would be better to locate near one
> particular phone company exchange. Note: Some areas do not have *any*
> spare phone lines. Or may have an old cable which is prone to having
> problems say when it rains. I would not want to locate a monitoring center
> in such an area. If you have your choice of cities and not one particular
> city, then cost of living/cost of labor might be a consideration. Also if
> a national 1-800 type center, a particular city might be better than
> others. Note that some downtown high rise areas of various cities have all
> sorts of phone/fiber optic capacity run under certain streets.
>
> Then is there a building in such an area you could rent or buy *and* which
> you could modify to your specs.? Is there free parking for employees,
> etc.? Can employees easily get to this location or it it a traffic mess at
> certain times?
>
> Then some monitoring centers look like a computer center with a raised
> floor to run wiring under and have similar security and fire systems. Are
> you required to have a fire suppression system? Check with the local fire
> department for what is required/allowed. Insurance? U.L.? One may say one
> thing, but the fire department or local regulations may say something
> else!
>
> Next is air conditioning. If you have a lot of electronic equipment in one
> room, it generates heat. Might want to add up the BTU's (heat generated)
> of all the electronic equipment you will have to see if the existing air
> conditioning will handle the load. And if not, can additional air
> conditioning be added? Some rooms in buildings can't handle the heat
> generated by two employees (600 to 700 BTU's per person) let alone a lot
> of electronic equipment.
>
> Then physical security. Can you modify the building for what you will
> need? Probably don't want doors with key locks (key could be duplicated).
> So card access to center might be best. Can the doors be modified for your
> entry/exit requitements? Man trap needed?
>
> Wiring... Is it easy to add lots of wiring as needed? Add additional
> wiring easily in the future?
>
> Then next is equipment/software to purchase. Find out what is available.
> You can go to groups.google.com and find this group, then search just this
> group for specific brand names. See what people have said in the past
> about these things.
>
> With this link, you can use the lower search box to search just this
> group...
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.security.alarms?lnk=srg
>
> Then here I searched in the lower search box for monitoring software and
> came up with all this...
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.security.alarms/search?group=alt.security.alarms&q=monitoring+software&qt_g=1&searchnow=Search+this+group
>
>
>