Vonage with Alarm System

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: May 18, 2004 Posts: 2

Does anyone have any experience using vonage as the phone line your alarm system in your house is connected to?

I just had an alarm company refuse to talk to me any more after I told them I had a VOiP phone line.....

Any Ideas?

Posts: 65 · Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 10:03 pm Post subject:

I have not had much luck with modem connections Vonage. To be honest moving my alarm system to Vonage was a little bit scary for me, dealing with power outages, network issues, etc. Instead of keeping a second land line, I updated my alarm system to a cellular line. My alarm company came out installed the device, tested the system on the cellular network and everything has been fine since.

Moving to the cellular network costs me $8 more per month with my alarm company, but it's well worth it.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: May 24, 2006 Posts: 1

If one is forced to use a cellular alarm system at additional expense virtually negating the financial advantage of switching to Vonage, why would one switch from a more reliable plain old telephone service (POTS)?

If you really wanted to drop your POTS (which most of us do or Vonage wouldn't exist), it sure seems like using a cellular alarm system and then upgrading your cellular phone plan to include more minutes would be more cost effective, less trouble and more reliable.....at least until they come out with VoIP compatiable alarm systems.

Thoughts?

Posts: 426 · Posted: Thu May 25, 2006 3:49 pm Post subject:

The reason I like the cell phone use instead of the POTS.

If the "smart" burglar cuts the POTS line (or even the cable line), I still can have my incident reported to the alarm company.

Yes it costs more, but, the alarm costs more than a nosy neighbor.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 07, 2006 Posts: 1

I just had an alarm installed last week. The installer used the GE Networx system. Initially he had some issues with communitcating to the monitoring station. He spoke to someone at ge and switched the language that the alarm was using to SIA and now the system works flawlessly. The alarm company has set the alarm to look for phone service every 10 seconds and call in once a week. So far no problems.

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 26, 2006 Posts: 8

> He spoke to someone at ge and switched the
> language that the alarm was using to SIA and
> now the system works flawlessly.

I have a friend that use to work a lot on VoIP stuff at his old job. He explained to me that the ability for DTMF (the format most alarm panels use) to transmit clearly is dependent on the number of conversions from analog to digital... and that this is something that most VoIP providers can not control. I didn't understand it all that well... but what I took away from that was that Vonage and Alarms might work for a few people, but in general, it won't. I'm happy for Jamiecer, though.

After talking with my friend, I decided to switch over to uControl. They solve this problem and offer a lot of cool and useful features. If you are interested in knowing more check out their web site (http://www.ucontrol.com) and/or my other forum posting: vonage-forum.com/sutra99659.html#99659." target="_blank">http://www.vonage-forum.com/sutra99659.html#99659.

Posts: 29 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Aug 18, 2005 Posts: 29

Initially when I tried to cut over my alarm panel (Napco Gemini) to use Vonage w/ ContactID format, it didn't work. I ended up dropping my alarm company and signing up with NextAlarm.com because they advertise a module which allows most panels to connect over the Internet (the ABN: Alarm Broadband Network adapter).

In reality, the ABN box is another Linksys PAP2T VOIP box with custom code to interface w/ VOIP to their office. I've had mixed results using their ABN, it would just stop working randomly and I wouldn't receive my daily test signals.

However, I've recently changed my Vonage bandwidth settings to the maximum rate (90k?) and plugged my alarm back into the Vonage line and guess what. It works great! Ran a series of tests (arm, disarm, alarm trip, fire alarm, panic alarm) and they all report back fine over my Vonage connection. I should mention I am using a Linksys PAP2 for my Vonage interface. Having cablemodem service, setting aside 90k for VOIP is chump change.

While NextAlarm.com's ABN adapter is kinda hit or miss for me, I really do like their service. The cost is pretty low and you get a whole lot of customization options on reporting - you can see everything online and set your zones up yourself, including what kind of response each zone gets (or none or just an email). Their alarm response is excellent too as a couple times when I've tripped the system without putting it into test mode, they've called within 90 seconds to confirm the alarm - (and one time I thought the system was in test mode and I hit the panic alarm and 10 minutes later found some flashlights shining in my windows and 3 cruisers outside).

I'd be curious to see how many other folks with either ContactID (Ademco Point ID) or SIA and max Vonage bandwidth are able to get their alarms working as is?

Posts: 94 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Sep 15, 2006 Posts: 94

You might want to try www.alarm.com. Use the link www.alarm.com/vonage for $100 off. They go over cell phone/radio instead of our phone lines or broadband, so it works with Vonage.

We have two of these systems installed, one at our primary residence, and one at our vacation home. The interface is really slick -- everything is web-controlled. The per-month is a little steep, though.

Posts: 20 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: May 09, 2006 Posts: 20

I worked closely with a customer and his home alarm installer. He was using a Vector alarm system which uses the newest General Electric chipset in the main unit. This is the same chipset that ADT and Brinks uses. The customers internet connection was very consistent. All cables were crimped by the installer and checked. The system does use a two-wire fax cable. I tried every possible setting combination, testing the outbound call from the alarm unit after every setting update from config. The call never completed. The installer insisted that the Linksys devices always worked. The customer purchased a PAP2V2. It is now working correctly

one main point is that your internet connection must be consistant.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 08, 2007 Posts: 2

I'm actually using uControl service with my Vonage phone. It works over a broadband and cellular connection, so my broadband doesn't always have to be up for my home to be monitored. They also let me know when my broadband goes down and my home is being monitored over the cellular path. it even keeps monitoring if my power goes out because it uses the battery back-up in my alarm system and it alerts me that my power is out when it's running off of the battery back-up..