Burglar Alarm Monitoring – Is it Worth the Money
If you talk to anyone in the burglar alarm business, they will definitely tell you that you should without a doubt have your house alarm system monitored. On the surface it sounds like a great idea to have home security system monitored but they may not give you the whole truth about what you actually get for your monthly monitoring payment. Here are some facts that you should know about before you sign up:
How your burglar alarm signal is sent matters. There are a variety of ways that your home security system can send an alert to the central station (a central station is where the alarm signals are received and processed). Some ways are more reliable than others. The majority of alarm signals will be sent either over your telephone line, a local cell tower via radio signal, or through the Internet. Each method has it’s own set of pros and cons.
Using a telephone line requires wiring that can be easily cut by an intruder that knows what they are doing but it’s usually the cheapest method and the most reliable. A radio signal can be sent wirelessly but is usually more expensive and it doesn’t have the best track record for sending signals. The Internet requires both wiring and can be expensive but for folks that don’t want or use telephone service it could be their answer.
Some burglar alarm monitoring companies charge more than others. There are some companies that will give you the same service for a lot less money than other companies. There is one company that I know of that actually charges you more for monitoring if you have additional security devices on your alarm system. What they don’t tell you is that the burglar alarm company pays the central station a flat fee for each alarm security system. That means that it doesn’t matter how many security devices you have on your system, the burglar alarm company pays the same rate to the central station. However, they may get extra charges if a security system sends an excessive amount of signals during a time period.
Central stations are state regulated and therefore are created equal. They are more than likely Underwriters Laboratory (UL) certified, manned 24/7, and have a backup system in case of power failure. You still want to check to make sure that the central station your burglar alarm company uses has all of these things but don’t be surprised to see that they ALL have it.
Just because you pay for burglar alarm monitoring doesn’t mean that the proper authorities will respond to the call. The job of the central monitoring station is to receive signals from burglar alarm and then to call either the police, fire, or whatever authority should be called. That’s it. Local police and fire agencies may take their sweet time to respond if they respond at all. For example, where I am from, the sheriff’s office will take on average – 15 minutes – to show up at the scene of an activated security system. A lot can happen in 15 minutes. There are some locations where you can’t even get the police to respond to a home alarm system signal.
In conclusion, I still recommend that you have your burglar alarm system monitored but only if it makes sense for YOU and you should know that even if your system is monitored there are limitations on what you should expect from using that service.
