Many residents are installing Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) phone systems such as Vonage or AT&T CallVantage that may prevent your alarm system from communicating with our central monitoring station during an emergency. When an alarm is triggered, your alarm system calls the central monitoring station and electronically transmits data (not voice) information to the station related to the nature and location of the alarm. This communication requires that you have a standard telephone grade line. VOIP systems introduce additional points of failure such as the availability of the internet, availability of sufficient bandwidth on the internet, availability of power, cable modem failure, router failure or VOIP telephone interface equipment failure that could prevent a critical emergency call from being completed. In addition, the manner in which VOIP transmits and receives information will likely prevent your alarm system from communicating with the central monitoring station. The data communications between our central station and your panel is similar to the data transfers that occur when faxing documents. If you have a VOIP system, you have probably found it difficult to send or receive a fax too.

Many manufacturers of alarm panels which are installed in our homes disclaim all liability for any emergency call that is placed using a VOIP system. Finally, VOIP systems typically require special wiring to the main alarm panel. We recently visited several homes which replaced their standard phone lines with VOIP phone service. When our installer tested these lines, an average of 4 out of 5 calls made to our central station resulted in a situation where the alarm panel could not communicate with our central station.

For the above reasons, security companies usually have the homeowner sign a waiver indicating they are not responsible for communication problems that may result from connecting VOIP to your alarm system. So, BEWARE and don’t connect VOIP systems to your central alarm panel!!