Re: New 10 digit dialing problems

[Frank Olson <Use_the_email_links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

R.H.Campbell wrote:
> 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
>
>
>


BC experienced that headache a few years ago, Bob.  In fact, I came
across an 832 panel that was still dialing seven digits a few months ago
(it was a fire alarm system communicator, no less).  We got called in
because the Nimrod security company doing the monitoring figured it was
the fire alarm system's fault that their system wasn't communicating
troubles or daily tests (for the last two years!).  I hooked up my butt
set to listen to what I thought was going to be some form of garbled
communication and lo and behold...  the panel only dialed seven
digits...  Doh!!!  The customer wound up switching to our service...