It’s no secret. More and more, customers are getting rid of their home telephone and have opted for newer, more robust services offered through cellular providers. Below are some outlined strengths and weaknesses for each connection.
Traditional Monitoring
Landlines, or plain old telephone system (POTS) have been used as the traditional alarm monitoring. The alarm is connected to home phone lines, and communicates with the monitoring facility through it. Traditional monitoring is slightly cheaper. Up until recently one of the landline’s greatest strengths was it low¬cost connection to home security systems. One of the most recognized weaknesses of this system is the vulnerability of being cut thus deactivating any signals from the home security system itself. If a burglar were to cut your home phone line, outside your home, your alarm system would be unable to communicate with the monitoring facility.
Cellular Monitoring
With increased use of cellular phones, fixed landlines have seen a dramatic decrease in subscriptions. More and more consumers are switching to cellular as their primary phone connections. With Total Connect, customers can remote control their homes via SmartPhone. It makes disarming and arming systems easy. Many control panels are moving to cellular/GSM technology to transmit signals to monitoring stations. Cellular alarm monitoring essentially eliminates the ability to cut outside phone lines. Cellular monitoring does run slightly more per month, but there is no need for a home phone for your alarm. Typically, customers who drop their home phone service still end up saving money. Monitoring rates for our cellular service is $31.00 a month with existing equipment.
Quick Summary: What type of alarm transmission method should you choose?
Choosing the connection that’s right for you depends on your needs and situation. The decision on the monitoring method to use should be based on how much you want spend per month on security, the level of security you want and whether you want to access and control your security system remotely or not. Still have questions? Contact the security experts at Security Alarm and we’ll be happy to help determine the right option for you and your budget.
