Vonage and ADT alarms

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 02, 2006 Posts: 2

ADT will not transmit on Voip phone line not because they cant. because if you inernet is down or your power is off your alarm will not transmit. they are not aproved by the FCC as a relyable means of alarm trans. and they are not UL approved. if i cut your power off buy pulling you meter out or they was a bad storm and lightning hit you house it would burn down with no alarm. even a table lamp has a ul approved sticker on them but not your phone.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 16, 2006 Posts: 2

ADT talked me into cell guard even though I was prepared to pay the cancellation fee to get out of the contract early. It took some wrangling, but I convinced them to install it for $75 and keep my monthly monitoring fee at the same rate. (The already high 34.99, what was I thinking when I had it insinstalled The cell gaugourds installed 1 1/2 weeks ago. Monday morning at 1:20am my alarm went off scaring the daylights out of my wife and I. After waiting 10 minutes for ADT never called. I looked at the alarm control and it said zone 6 was triggered, yet I do not have a zone 6. I called ADT and we determined that the cell ggourdlost communication with the tower causing the alarm to trigger. The rep said it is common for cell towers to go down for service in the middle of the night and she receives many calls like mine.

Sorry for the long winded message, but I wanted to let anyone who is considering ADT cell guard to know what they are getting into. It's ironic that they will not allow Voip because it is "unreliable" when ADT's cell guard appears to be no better.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 17, 2006 Posts: 1

Hello Nathan,

I just recently had an ADT system installed the other day but I only received a users manual for the safewatch pro 3000EN which also has a 6160VADT voice keypad. I did not get my installer code and am a little concerned because I have heard that all these systems use the same installer code which surely comprimises security and puts total trust in all current and all past ADT installers and anyone who has learned these codes. I was reading a blog that anyone knowing this code while not able to disarm a system can add a guest code which from that point on can allow arming and disarming and be almost invisible to the owner of the system. I need to know the installer code so that I can change it to a unique code. I am sure that ADT does not want us to know the code but I do not totally trust any business where mass access to my secure information is available. We were cloned once years ago on cell phones and had a identity nightmare as a result.

Nathan wrote:

Hey guys,

I'm new to the forum. I have a Ademco Safewatch Pro 3000EN(made for ADT) alarm with ADT service. I just hooked up my ATA from Vonage earlier this week and have been testing my alarm ever since. I can not get the alarm to communicate with ADT. I can see where the alarm is trying to dial them. It tries like 16 times. My ATA is behind my router. I am going to try moving it in front of my router and program my alarm to dial *99 before the number. I noticed one of you is doing pass through on your ATA. I would assume that this causes you to get 2 ip addresses from your ISP. Am I correct? I run several web services from behind my router and can't afford the ATA to block ports. I'll let you know how my testing goes.

PS: I found my Alarms installer code in the alarms install manual. It's probably the same for all ADT Ademco alarms. If you can't find it let me know and I'll tell you what it is offline.

Nathan Aaron

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 26, 2006 Posts: 6

ADTman wrote:

ADT will not transmit on Voip phone line not because they cant. because if you inernet is down or your power is off your alarm will not transmit. they are not aproved by the FCC as a relyable means of alarm trans. and they are not UL approved. if i cut your power off buy pulling you meter out or they was a bad storm and lightning hit you house it would burn down with no alarm. even a table lamp has a ul approved sticker on them but not your phone.

To be honest, it would be a hell of a lot easier for someone to snip the phone cable outside my house than to mess with the meter. Likewise, it's easy and inexpensive to hook up a UPS to your VOIP/router/modem.

If there were a lightning strike which took out my communications equipment, chances are it would short out the modem in my alarm as well.

Nothing is perfect. While I would agree that a landline provides more stability (my phone was only down 2 times in 10 years, whereas my broadband connection has been down at least 5 times). Yet, if someone wants to break into my house and knows anything about alarms, it would be trivial for them to disconnect my phone.

So in reality, which one is really more reliable?

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 26, 2006 Posts: 6

Onazuka wrote:

Yes, I know how phone lines work since I have installed them before. That's why I asked why switching these would improve anything because I don't see how. You are saying that it would help in the event that the person's house wiring was wrong in the first place. So we should really be giving guidance in how the jack should be properly wired and what proper cables to use rather than telling people to switch the ring and tip. Otherwise were just telling people to switch stuff that may be wrong and cause problems later.

There is a simple, cheap device you can get at Radio Shack that you can plug in and it will tell you if everything is wired correctly. A green light is good. A red light means the wired need to be swapped.

He didn't say that the jacks were wired incorrectly.

What he said is that phone lines have a proper polarity. They will however work just fine even if the polarity is reversed. When most people hook up their Voip to their existing wiring, they don't use a crossover cable. The net effect is that their phones still work fine, however data equipment like modems and faxes might not work properly.

The choice then is to either use a crossover cable to connect your Voip adapter to your existing wiring OR reverse the green and red wires on your alarm panel.

Posts: 20 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 10, 2005 Posts: 20

Quote:

He didn't say that the jacks were wired incorrectly.

What he said is that phone lines have a proper polarity. They will however work just fine even if the polarity is reversed.l.

If the "polarity is reveresed" then it is wired wrong. Yes, your phone will work with "reveresed polarity" but it still means it's wired wrong. You really need to fix the wiring, not fix it with a double negative using a cross cable.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 26, 2006 Posts: 6

Onazuka wrote:

Quote:

He didn't say that the jacks were wired incorrectly.

What he said is that phone lines have a proper polarity. They will however work just fine even if the polarity is reversed.l.

If the "polarity is reveresed" then it is wired wrong. Yes, your phone will work with "reveresed polarity" but it still means it's wired wrong. You really need to fix the wiring, not fix it with a double negative using a cross cable.

The phone jacks are not wrong, they are wired correctly. It's when you hook up the Voip adapter TO the hardwired lines that the reversal is occuring. This is because if you don't use a crossover cable you are CAUSING the polarity reversal. It's done this way because it's easier to find (i.e. people already have) pass through cables and it works fine with non data equipment.

So the way to "fix" the wiring is to use a crossover cable between the adapter and the jack so that *you* don't reverse the polarity.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 10, 2006 Posts: 2

I have been inquiring with ADT to become and authorized dealer the first thing I asked was about Voip. The rep told me right away that no ADT system will support Voip and it may never will. This statement is not 100% true however I am not gonna go into detail with this since it has already been mentioned why.

As for power outtages whether by mother nature or intentionally cut, I would purchase a backup battery system to hook up my modem, router and Voip too. Get at least a 650VA or 1000VA backup power supply to give your Hours of operation of phone service. When power goes out the cable lines typically don't, so if you have backup battery you should be fine. As for alarm systems as a precautionary I use a Excelus DSL alarm filter between my Vonage lines and the alarm. I have been testing my system every two weeks and every time the central station would get a clear precise signal.

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

I have been using uControl for several months now. Works with Voip just fine. It uses broadband and an optional cellular channel as backup. They monitor the connection "real time" -- if you loose connection with the monitoring station you can know within minutes.

I have been real happy. It just connects to your existing system and gives more features. I love getting an email when the house keeper starts and finishes cleaning. The web interface is pretty nice too. Oh yeah, it allows arming and disarming remotely -- a nice feature if you don't wanna give your house keeper a code.

It was cheaper than what I was paying, too. Check it out: http://www.ucontrol.com

Posts: 13 · Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 3:24 pm Post subject: Motorola VT2142 and ADT

I am having trouble with the Motorola VT2142 and ADT. I have a SafewatchPro and when it off hooks the voltage drops from 48V to 3.3V. It dials the phone, but does not sense the connection to Vonage.

I don't think there is enough current in the VT2142 to keep a constant 20 ma Loop. Anyone else using this adaptor? Anyone had any luck with another one (I'll go get something else if I can get one that works...)