Spark, Fibre, medic alarms, ConnectID on ONT voice ports

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark, Fibre, medic alarms, ConnectID on ONT voice ports

cyril7

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#237771 17-Jun-2018 19:49

Hi, quick question regarding the serviceability of classic Medic alarms and Alarm (ConnectID) services via the voice services provided by the Chorus ONT with Spark as ISP, do they work.

I understand Chorus provide these services as G.711 A-law, so technically speaking "should" pass all primitive modem connections, but can someone confirm these work or not.

Cheers

Cyril

richms

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#2039243 17-Jun-2018 20:13

Last person I know who tried it was a sometimes but not often enough to be remotely considered acceptable. perhaps 10% failure rate on the arm and disarm calls?

Richard rich.ms

hio77

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#2039249 17-Jun-2018 20:26

technically speaking, it should be fine.

but it's better to be safe and go with a solution built to be capable to be used over fibre than risk it...

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Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

cyril7

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#2039335 18-Jun-2018 06:27

Hi, thanks for the feedback, my feeling was it would all be good, how the question comes about, recently I got fibre, as soon as it was available in the street. All went smoothly but it did require digging up the neighbours front lawns (on the council area between the path and the curb. So all the elderly neighbours got involved with what was happening. Several of them are surprisingly geeky so have now pursued getting fibre, but this question has stalled them as they have been advised by Spark that their alarms need upgrading. (I have an alarm, but not monitored). They have been quoted a $10 monthly increase in monitoring charges ($25>35) in addition to $400 to have the gear replaced, the $400 I feel is fine as the current alarms are around 10-15yrs old, but the monthly increase is a bit of a deal clincher.

Cyril

chevrolux

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#2039361 18-Jun-2018 08:29

Permacon units can be connected by either IP or GSM.

Generally there is only an increased monitoring cost when going the GSM route.

Also, they aren't $400, around $250-$300 retail including some cabling time.

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#2039366 18-Jun-2018 08:34

Find out how much they are paying for monitoring, and see if that is the same as what the alarm company offers for new contracts. They are probably on a grandfathered contract, and the alarm company is trying to use the equipment upgrade to move them to a newer more expensive contract.

Find out what standard Chorus uses for their baseband voice service. As when the remaining NEAX switches disappear, even copper landlines will all be VOIP. So presumably the same problems will still happen.

Spyware

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#2039962 18-Jun-2018 18:38

chevrolux: Permacon units can be connected by either IP or GSM.

Generally there is only an increased monitoring cost when going the GSM route.

Also, they aren't $400, around $250-$300 retail including some cabling time.

I was only told about GPRS Permacon. $165 for device, $155 labour to install (all of 5 mins), + increased monthly. I had run cat6 to alarm panel so am annoyed if I could have avoided the monthly fee increase.

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cyril7

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#2039963 18-Jun-2018 18:40

Hi yes that's the detail that bothers me, if it's via the lan surely they have no cause to charge extra, but they seem adamant.

Cyril

richms

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#2039974 18-Jun-2018 18:59

remember that when changing from a dialup to a cellular monitored alarm, you were already paying half the costs in your phonebill for a dialup line for it to call out on.

Cellular isnt trivial to bypass like dialup or most fiber installs where you just rip the wire off the side of the house, so its more secure, and they are paying the full cost of it. So yeah it should cost more.

Richard rich.ms

chevrolux

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#2039979 18-Jun-2018 19:06

cyril7: Hi yes that's the detail that bothers me, if it's via the lan surely they have no cause to charge extra, but they seem adamant.

Cyril

ADT seem to be the biggest culprit for this.

We suggest Alarm Watch to people if their current monitoring station plays difficult.

They have a great little app too so the customer can view status, arm/disarm etc.

And yep the white Permaconn's are certainly "dual play" in terms of IP or 3G monitoring. There is another unit called "Radionet" which is 3G only.

I would love to post the true cost of the Permaconn units... but y'know... NDA's etc haha. Safe to safe there has been some ridiculous pricing thrown around by installers for a long time. We try to catch it when we install a new VoIP phone system by offering to arrange the alarm set up.