Alarm Standards AS2201-5 2008?

[mse]

AS 2201-5 (2008)
There has been a great deal of discussion and conjecture regarding monitoring formats and how the new AS 2201-5 affects manufacturers, monitoring centres, installers and ultimately the end users.

I do believe it is important to have standards for the industry to follow but Class 3 & 4 under AS2201-5 (2008) has become far too complicated and fails to reflect the varying levels of security provided by the available technology.

I believe far too much time has been spent addressing the replacement for Securitel (Class 3 & 4) and not enough spent addressing digital diallers (class 1 & 2) which represents 90% of the market.

The standards fail to provide enough variation in the level of security provided by failing to encumber all the available technology.
A Few Examples:
1. Most of the equipment and systems that comply with class 3 actually comply with class 4 which almost makes class 3 obsolete.
2. A dialler system can easily be set up for class 1 or 2 but the addition of a GSM back up unit for redundancy provides no additional security.
3. What allowance has been made for new technology in class 1 & 2 like IP monitoring?
4. If you go up to class 5 you basically reduce transmission time by 20 seconds and supervision by 40 seconds and that is going to make little difference when it takes 1/2 an hour for police or private patrols to respond.

I'm not saying I have all the answers but I believe there are still too many questions that need to be asked and answered.

[intelliGEORGE]

Well as of the 23rd of July 2008, Telcos announced the digital network roll-out, both Optus and Telstra have announced that they have commenced rolling out their digital networks that will see the end of PSTN switched networks on the copper infrastructure by replacing it with fibre to the node (FTTN) and voice over IP for telephony.

This will mean that Digital alarm dialers using DTMF may be effected from the 23/07/2008 onward. Considering 90% of all alarm panels out there rely on the copper network, why don't we start with Class 1.

I have already explained in another post why dialers will not work, and to refresh on that, it is purely because VoIP uses Codecs to transmit voice (digitising an analog signal) now when you have an already digital signal from an alarm panel and you Encode it to digital again, you will have some sort of loss in the compression the codec uses, and when it is Decoded you will get loss again.

The question now is, what has been done to accommodate these changes in the telecommunications infrastructure for the end-user to have a solution that keeps them in the same class as previously achievable over PSTN, without "Automatically" being upgraded to a Class 3 Transmission device?

[mse]

I saw this comming and already have our own IP solution that converts a standard dialler to a Class 1 & 2 IP monitoring service.
Our product can do call capture with existing panels that report CI and it also has the ability to accept the ASIAL serial protocal for interconnection.
IP Interface cost $299 and the weekly monitoring cost to client is $7.70 Per Wk.

We may need to establish a suitable list of questions for a poll to establish the most important issues and gauge support.

[IPAlarms]

Well as of the 23rd of July 2008, Telcos announced the digital network roll-out, both Optus and Telstra have announced that they have commenced rolling out their digital networks that will see the end of PSTN switched networks on the copper infrastructure by replacing it with fibre to the node (FTTN) and voice over IP for telephony.

This will mean that Digital alarm dialers using DTMF may be effected from the 23/07/2008 onward.

One thing for people to remember when they read my posts on this subject - I have been thru all of this a few years ago in the US, last year in the UK and here again now in Oz.

What is good is that a few people are now starting to realise that there is a much larger opportunity out there for forward thinking installers in IP upgrades than there is for Securitel upgrades.

Here is what I think will happen....

The first stage is for most alarm companies to ignore all the warnings. I think I will now officially name this the Denial stage. We are already part way through this stage in Australia.

The second stage is for everyone to pick up the closest ATA, plug in a panel, fire off five or six signals and if a couple get through then assume the problem is solved - or was never there in the first place. George and others will offer dozens and dozens of excellent technical descriptions as to why this should not be done, but they will all be in vain.

You will hear the word "SHOULD" a lot from Telstra when you ask if your dialler will work over their new network.

So basically, there will be a lot of technical confusion as to what works and what doesn't. That will work itself out over time, so what we should focus on are the relevant standards, what is allowed and what is not.

Considering 90% of all alarm panels out there rely on the copper network, why don't we start with Class 1

Great idea George. Let's seek confirmation as to whether or not upgrading a dialler to IP violates the existing standards. Anyone care to start this off ?

[mse]

Great idea George. Let's seek confirmation as to whether or not upgrading a dialler to IP violates the existing standards. Anyone care to start this off ?[/QUOTE]
Great idea George. Let's seek confirmation as to whether or not upgrading a dialler to IP violates the existing standards. Anyone care to start this off ?[/QUOTE]

I have taken a double edged approach to this issue as follows:
As previously discussed the problem is the standards were written with a focus around Class 3 & 4 without any consideration for Class 1 & 2requiremennts. The snag with the standards is that most IP monitoring is done through an IP interface and as soon as you introduce an interface it forms part of the alarm transmission network and needs to certified. I would suggest that if the IP Ethernet connection was onboard the panel this may remove the compliance hurdle. We need AS 2201-5 to take into consideration the need for more cost effective solutions for class 1 & 2 and I have been making enquiries about the standards committee.
The second approach is that we are looking at getting the product we use certified for Class 1 & 2 but it send every one into a spin when you start talking Class 1 & 2 because no body has given any serious thought to this segment of the market (90% of the market).

Unfortunately there are few visionaries in this industry.

[No Brainer]

I tend to agree with you, It is difficult to see why under the standards a system that meets Class 1 & 2 actually needs to go through the same rigours of certification as systems meeting Class 3 and upwards.

Class 1 calls for Transmission delays not exceeding 120 seconds with Supervision of 8 days

Class 2 calls for Transmission delays not exceeding 90 seconds with Supervision of 25 hours

These systems requirements would seem to cater little in the way of high security so it could be argued why they need to meet the same criteria.

For example when I insure my house, the insurance company asks me if I have an alarm but dont really care if its monitored etc...they are more interested if I have window locks & dead locks !!

However business insurance requires risk assessors who specify higher levels of electronic protection...hence the need to provide technology equivalent or better than securitel so the only way to ensure that is to have products that meet standards.

Naturally the category of residence would need to be taken into account, i.e remember the FAI scenario but I guess the problem with low end systems will be when unscrupulous operators start installing them into higher risk premises saying they meet requirements.

I see your point for Class 1 & Class 2

[IPAlarms]

Class 1 calls for Transmission delays not exceeding 120 seconds with Supervision of 8 days

Class 2 calls for Transmission delays not exceeding 90 seconds with Supervision of 25 hours

Most IP systems have a transmission delay of around 100ms and supervision can be as low as 10 seconds - so this is not really an issue.

The stumbling block is who is going to approve the client router, the client ISP network, the server ISP network (and related hardware), the server router and the server software ?

The answer is obviously nobody. So how do we get around this and claim that IP solutions qualify as class 2 ?

[IPAlarms]

OK - it's clicked. It's all fallen into place for me now. I could not for the life of me figure out why the standards committee made the decision to insist that "everything in between" must be approved for class 1 & 2 solutions.

Here's my theory....

I had two suspects - SCSI/Optus and UHS/Telstra who both have clout on the standards committee. SCSI were easy to eliminate as they don't have an ADSL product. So I went to work on the UHS/Telstra partnership.

It didn't take me long to find a product on the UHS web site that was an ADSL/GPRS solution with one important difference. It has a built-in modem.

That means that the only thing left to approve is the network. Well, that shouldn't be too difficult for Telstra now should it ?

So, unless you own your own ADSL network and can quickly design and build an IP board with built-in modem, then Telstra have in effect "secured" the remaining 90% of the whole monitoring market by offering the only approved product available.

It must really hurt them that SCSI have managed to gain approval for class 3 and above otherwise they could have had themselves a nice cushy monopoly - just like the good old days.

Don't you just love corporate Australia ?

[keef82]

Why is it "such" a bad thing that Telstra have buddied up with UHS, and Optus with SCSI ?

IF they are offering a solution that is totally compliant with a service level agreement, where can you go wrong ?

How is that any different to "securitel" which was "telstra" only ?

[IPAlarms]

Why is it "such" a bad thing that Telstra have buddied up with UHS, and Optus with SCSI ?

From a business perspective, nothing. What gets me is that they are allowed to sit on the very committee that writes the standards and "influence" other people at the same table into making decisions that will ultimately benefit their companies.

Now if I were on the committee, I would insist that only companies with "IP" in their name were allowed to comply with class 1 and class 2 - but I'm not on the committee

I'm not really sure what's going on at level 3 and above and I don't really care as that type of system only accounts for a small percentage of the market. It would be different if I were a bureau with a few hundred Securitel systems that I wanted to convert to IP/GPRS with Suretek only to find out that I could only use SCSI or Telstra in order to comply with standards.

Add to that the fact that the standards dictate you can only upgrade to IP and comply with class 1 and 2 if you use UHS/Telstra and you may as well be in China.

IF they are offering a solution that is totally compliant with a service level agreement, where can you go wrong ?

If we're going to think like that, we may as well just have 2 TV channels, 2 newspapers, 2 radio stations and a single political party to take care of it all for us. As long as we can get a service level agreement from each - who needs the rest ?

How is that any different to "securitel" which was "telstra" only ?

No different.

Let's all roll over and let them do it all again.

[IPAlarms]

Quote:

The official figures for the end of June 2007 from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) confirm that while the take-up of mobile phones and broadband internet services has exploded, fixed lines are slowly going in the opposite direction. :

Landlines decreased (residential and business) decreased by over 300,000 (3%) in the year to 30 June 2007. That followed a 1.7% decrease in the previous year. There are now 10.9 million landlines.

:End Quote


Now I don't know about you but if I owned Telstra I'd be doing everything I could to stop that flow.

Now, considering there are approx 1 million monitored alarms, I'd be thinking - How can I do something to prevent those alarm guys from upgrading to IP ?

Well, how about making a few friends on the security standards board and get them to help us ?

What if we come up with the outrageous proposal that every modem or router and every network between the panel and the monitoring centre has to be certified (at a huge cost) - do you think they would be dumb enough to go for it ?

That way, nobody but Telstra will be able to comply with the standards and consumers will all have to keep their landlines.

Surely - no industry is that dumb ?

[bss904]

Now if I were on the committee, I would insist that only companies with "IP" in their name were allowed to comply with class 1 and class 2 - but I'm not on the committee

If we're going to think like that, we may as well just have 2 TV channels, 2 newspapers, 2 radio stations and a single political party to take care of it all for us. As long as we can get a service level agreement from each - who needs the rest ?

No different.

Let's all roll over and let them do it all again.

But your missing one inportant point steve, you know your going to be screwed in the arse by one of the big two, but a least you still get to choose which anal lube you use, if any.
Theres nothing stoping you buy 51% of the shares in each of the two companies except for finding a whole lot of money to do so.

[keef82]

But your missing one inportant point steve, you know your going to be screwed in the arse by one of the big two, but a least you still get to choose which anal lube you use, if any.
Theres nothing stoping you buy 51% of the shares in each of the two companies except for finding a whole lot of money to do so.

LOL

[IPAlarms]

We need AS 2201-5 to take into consideration the need for more cost effective solutions for class 1 & 2 and I have been making enquiries about the standards committee.

Be sure to let us know what you find out.

The second approach is that we are looking at getting the product we use certified for Class 1 & 2 but it send every one into a spin when you start talking Class 1 & 2 because no body has given any serious thought to this segment of the market (90% of the market).

Let's just refer to it as "Telstra's Market"

Unfortunately there are few visionaries in this industry.

Oh I don't know. Telstra and Optus obviously saw all of this coming.

[balun]

By specifying a response time to an event would make a much better standard for classes than actual polling times etc.
The time taken for action to an alarm response makes way more sense.
" Our system complies to a class 5 according to Australian standards !"
who gives a shit when the guard took 45 mins to arrive.

[Tecom Master]

By specifying a response time to an event would make a much better standard for classes than actual polling times etc.
The time taken for action to an alarm response makes way more sense.
" Our system complies to a class 5 according to Australian standards !"
who gives a shit when the guard took 45 mins to arrive.

Not really. How long it takes for the guard to wake up is really outside the scope of the standard.

[balun]

what are the standards supposed to achieve then? Having the highest tech/spec security system is all well and good but in the event of an alarm what is to happen?

The standards cover battery replacement, servicing skeds, even how long it should take for the security company to attend a fault? But the most important part is left out? the actual alarm response.
Does it not seem crazy to anyone else that alarm response is not covered when fault response is?

[IPAlarms]

what are the standards supposed to achieve then?

My thoughts were that they are supposed to enforce as high a standard as possible for the benefit of the security industry and for the general public. It turned out they were actually written to protect the chosen few from penetration of "their" market share !

Does it not seem crazy to anyone else that alarm response is not covered when fault response is?

Dude - you're being far too sensible. Where's your ulterior motive ?

If you have some lucrative response contracts you want to protect and stop others competing, well, as long as you have plenty of dollars to throw around, I'm sure our friends on the standards committee would be more than interested to hear from you. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

[balun]

once the signal hits the control room there isn't much hardware left to sell.

If my insurance company tells me i must have an alarm that meets class 5, "fine" i say. Have the latest and greatest system installed, but whenever there is an alarm the first point of contact is me. I brush off the first few false alarms ( which the security company attended within 1 working day- as per aust standards- class 1 mind you) then on the one night there is a genuine alarm I decide to attend, I get there within 20 mins as the bad guys are about to drive off.
But being 165cm tall and 59kg I decide not to get in their way and call the police, who arrive 15 minutes after the bad guys have left.

Now you guys are arguing about seconds and milli seconds, seems crazy to me.

detection -event - communications - action .............. what part of the chain do you consider most important and requires more emphasis within the standards?

[phm]

My thoughts were that they are supposed to enforce as high a standard as possible for the benefit of the security industry and for the general public. It turned out they were actually written to protect the chosen few from penetration of "their" market share !

I can confirm first hand that this in fact the case.

One of the employees of a company that I used to work for, used to be on the committee which helped draft the previous standards for alarm systems (AS2201.1).

He made it quite clear that all his efforts were motivated to get certain points into the standards that would intentionally exclude key competitors products from meeting the standards.......
Any concerns about the consumer were very much of secondary importance.

He was quite proud of this in fact.

It appears that manipulating the standards to exclude competition - when it results in no benefit to the consumer - is perfectly O.K with the ACCC.

But using market dominance, or other violations of fair trade principle on the other hand, to crush the competition in the open marketplace is apparently illegal.