Commercial Alarms - Additional Information
Commercial alarms are usually monitored electronically by a remote monitoring station. Commonly used monitoring methods are:
- A digital dialer is the most common method of initiating a signal to the monitoring station. On activation of the alarm system, the dialer in the control panel uses the (existing) telephone line to send a digital signal to the central monitoring station. This signal identifies the site and the detection device which initiates the alarm (e.g. sensor in rear office). The monitoring station then takes appropriate action (which is entered on the activation instructions). This may be to notify the manager and despatch a patrol, (if appropriate).
- GSM Monitoring takes advantage of the GSM mobile telephone network to send signals to the central station. GSM systems are usually used in conjunction with a dialer and are configured either as a backup system, where the dialer sending it's signals via GSM in the event of the failure of the telephone line; or signals can be permanently sent via GSM.