Burglar alarms

[Phil Pascoe]

Reprint of a letter in The telegraph -


One consequence of the scheme to switch off the analogue phone service is that all monitored burglar alarm systems will cease to function.

From talking to my supplier, it appears that the solution is either to convert existing analogue equipment or to replace the whole system – at a cost of several hundred pounds.

Trevor Bullock

Has anyone looked into this?

 

[Geoff_S]

We did this years ago. It was just an additional box that connected by Wi-Fi to our router. Can’t recall the exact price but it wasn’t hundreds.

 

[Stigmorgan]

We had the schools alarm system upgraded a couple of years ago, don't recall the costs but it wasn't cheap to install, but I did opt for all the bells and whistles including a monitoring service and an app that allows me to control everything from my phone, having said that though, it made a huge difference to the schools insurance premiums. I even have the unforseen advantage of being able to use the app to see what the temperature surrounding each motion sensor is when the delicate ones start crying its cold in their classroom

 

[Spectric]

When analogue is switched of the new service is voice over internet, VOIP and you either get VOIP equipment or a convertor so you can still use old analogue equipment. Apart from monitored alarms some old Fax machines may also have issues.

 

[Southdownswolf]

We don't do burglar alarms, but when monitoring fire alarms, we install a device that uses mobile signals. A SIM is used and it connects to two networks, in case one network fails.
I would imagine that a lot of burglar alarms are capable of doing the same.

 

[Frank House]

We don't do burglar alarms, but when monitoring fire alarms, we install a device that uses mobile signals. A SIM is used and it connects to two networks, in case one network fails.
I would imagine that a lot of burglar alarms are capable of doing the same.

In a recent (ca 12 hr) power failure in my region of northwest Scotland, mobile signals from at least two networks disappeared rapidly when the mains went down, and were not restored until at least an hour after power returned.
Landlines remained operative.

 

[Skeety]

I have a Simplisafe monitored alarm, it has battery backup and also has a 4g sim in it as backup if wifi is down.

 

[flying haggis]

just use one of these to connect the alarm panel to the new "digital" phone line

https://www.bt.com/help/user-guides/phones/digital-voice/digital-voice-adapter

 

[niemeyjt]

In a recent (ca 12 hr) power failure in my region of northwest Scotland, mobile signals from at least two networks disappeared rapidly when the mains went down, and were not restored until at least an hour after power returned.
Landlines remained operative.

But VoIP won't - unless you have a battery backup of some sort for your terminal equipment (and unless BT / whoever do too at the other end).

Another issue on the nearer horizon is the 2G & 3G switch off(*) - and how many devices cannot upgrade to 4G or 5G - and without the landline converter fallback.

* Vodafone say 2023 - long before the mandated deadline of 2033.

 

[porker]

2G shouldn’t be a worry as this will be around for at least another 10 years. 3G devices would fall back to 2G. There are still a very large number of devices reliant on 2G but a lot less on 3G where the operators want to reuse the spectrum