Monitoring News
Every month our Managing Director, Steve Kimber, fills us in on the latest monitoring news.
Below is an archive of the previous months columns.
| May 08 | April 08 | |
| March 08 | February 08 | January 08 |
| December 07 | November 07 | October 07 |
| September 07 | August 07 | July |
| June 07 | May 07 | April 07 |
| March 07 | February 07 | January 07 |
Connections
May 2007
Hello Again,
This month’s news is all geared to telephone networks and network providers.
The mobile data network O2 is making a serious play into the security marketplace at IFSEC this year as the preferred choice for GSM transmissions over the 2424 WebWayOne IP solution.
Many other suppliers default to Vodafone as their preferred network, which in its own right is not issue until there are coverage problems. As an installer you need to make sure that if one product doesn’t work in a geographical area, then another supplier using a different network for GSM provision can provide a dual path signalling solution. Also, stop by on the WebWayOne stand while you are at IFSEC, to look at an exciting new product release for visual confirmation which will be available through Southern & Northern Monitoring Services.
The next topic is Non Geographic Numbers (NGN’s), these types of numbers were adopted by ARC’s at the time of National Renumbering in the 90’s, to provide network routing of alarm calls between centres during high traffic volumes and contingency. SMS adopted (as did many other ARC’s) the 0870 range and also opted not to make any revenue share on transmissions, as we were only interested in the network service provision associated with NGN’s.
As of February 2008 all 0870 NGN’s with revenue share will have to have an announcement on the dialled call declaring the rates, not an issue for SMS. However, OFCOM have also announced that the owner of the NGN will also be charged for incoming calls (bit like 0800). This obviously has major cost implications for all incoming alarm transmissions from diallers as well as speech lines, so we are currently reviewing our numbering structures for speech lines. We will not be changing our receiver 0870 NGN’s for legacy systems and whatever we commit to will be geared to providing the low costs for transmission and speech calls.
RedCare have terminated their contract with all the ARC’s as of 31st March so far as billing arrangements are concerned and a new contract has been offered to the industry. Some ARC’s, I am sure have taken the conscious decision not to sign the new contract and will be changing their preference for receiving dual path signalling systems. Other ARC’s have signed under protest and I am sure they will try and trade their way out ongoing exposure to the new contract. So don’t be surprised if you see some RedCare price increases from some ARC’s. At SMS we have embraced the changes enthusiastically and will continue to provide competitive prices for the RedCare product range, so no price increases from us!
And finally, do drop by at IFSEC and visit the Fire & Security Association stand, I shall be there all week and look forward to explaining to you the benefits of joining a Trade Association where size doesn’t matter!
Bye for now,
Steve