New 10 digit dialing problems

["R.H.Campbell" <rh.campbell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Effective 17 June 2006, residents of the two area codes 613 and 819 in
Eastern Canada will be required to dial the area code before the number in
order to make any kind of local call. This has a major bearing on how alarm
panels work, since they too have to dial a 10 digit receiver number, and I'm
sure most alarm companies are rushing to reprogram their customers panels.
However, I have to wonder what is going to happen to all those many
thousands of older panels which have been acquired through aquisitions by
the larger companies, and which are not capable of being dialed into to make
the necessary changes to the receiver number. It doesn't seem practical (or
even logistically possible) to make a visit to each panel to program the
changes, especially for the largest companies with multi thousands of these
panels in service.

I have to wonder about those customers who will never know their panels are
not working until they fail at a time when they are most needed, since at
least one of the largest companies routinely doesn't use automatic test
signals, and as such, no "failure to communicate" troubles will ever show up
on the keypads. Also, you have to wonder how many fires will go undetected
early because smoke detectors are unable to call in to the monitoring
station, and the bearing that will have on liabilities at all levels...
(Hello Prudential !! )

I know 10 digit dialing has been put into place in many other areas of North
America previously. Can anyone that's gone through it shed any light on what
happened in their area when it came about, and what sorts of things we can
expect to see here.

Any way you look at it, it doesn't appear to be much of a pretty picture....

RHC