Re: New 10 digit dialing problems

[Nomen Nescio <nobody@xxxxxxxxx>]

R. H. Campbell said:

>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.

Practical or not, it has to be done.  An alarm company would be exceedingly
negligent if it failed to reprogram its systems (or install another type of
transmitter), knowing full well that those systems could not possibly
communicate with the central station.  Especially if they keep cashing the
checks after the changeover date.

Using 800 numbers prevents all kinds of problems, especially when area
codes get split.

However, nobody said the alarm companies have to do the changes for free.
It isn't the alarm company's fault that the phone company is changing a
policy that's been in effect for over 50 years.

I don't know what governmental oversight there is in Canada.  You may be
able to get more time, either from the phone company or from the regulatory
agency.  It's not just alarm systems, there are a ton of credit card
machines and other equipment that may need to be reprogrammed.  Hopefully,
CANASA was on top of this from the beginning.

- badenov