Re: question about burglar alarm dispute (San Francisco Bay Area)

["Bob La Londe" <nospam@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Matt Ion" <soundy106@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

Now that said... at a rough guess I'd say the alarm company may have
changed their contact number and missed switching over a few panels,
since others seem to have had the same problem.  I don't see what the
age of the modem would have to do with anything; the only possible issue
I could see is if the system is dialing a 7-digit number when the
monitoring station has changed area codes, but from the sound of it, it
IS dialing a different area code than you're in, and still, the number
should be controlled by the panel, not the modem.

Actually where I have run across this type of problem is when the customer
has added DSL service to their home or business phone line without bothering
to notify the alarm company.  What usually happens is either the CS receiver
can't hear the signals over the DSL carrier OR more often the panel can't
hear the kissof signal from the CS so it sends the signal again.

Since all of my panels dial my toll free lines I just eat the toll cost when
it happens, and charge the customer for a DSL filter specific to alarm
panels.

NOW!  Technically it is the customer's fault, or the DSL providers fault in
this case.  I recently did a DSL self install in my house, and the
instruction clearly said that if you have an alarm panel notify your alarm
company.  I have also had clients call me and tell me their self install
instructions for their new DSL modem said the same thing.  If these
instruction are well enough known to be documented for self installers there
is absolutely no excuse for a proffessional DSL installer to make this
mistake either.

In this case we can't say who is at fault until we actually discover the
problem for this run-a-way repeat signal attempt, but addition of DSL to the
line can cause almost exactly these symptoms.

Of course we have over looked an underlying problem which could be makling
things worse.  AT&T.  If they have the customer on a carrier where they are
compressing to many phone lines over the available bandwidth they could be
distorting the signal enroute.  Usually the kissof signal is the one that
suffers.  Most of the time you can hear a little echo or tin can sound to
the lines on a voice call when this is the case, but not always.  The fact
that the customer's panel is dialing the local ANI terminated line rather
than the alarm companies toll free line says that whatever the customer's
toll provider does is what the alarm panel has to deal with.  Another reason
to own your own lines, and pick your own carrier that caters to alarm
companies, and have your own toll free lines.  Then rarely is the alarm
panel subject to the substandard service of the customer's toll provider.
Yes it costs you a few ¢ per signal, but the level of service is better.
Why this is the case for this customer is unknown.  Maybe they have been on
the same service for 50 years and have never had anything upgraded ever, and
now its coming back to bite them.