+1 AlarmNZ.com -1 Signature

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DonGould

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#73121 9-Dec-2010 19:04

Took Signature 2 days just to let me know the alarm hadn't reported in after I sent my 2Talk acc live...

Fault tech didn't follow stuff up as promised...

Got a number of calls today after 7 days of alarm not calling in...

Someone in sales offered upgaded product to link to my alarm that does 'ip monitoring'... 3 year contract, $67/month (just about finished last 3 year contract - $35/m) or $480 bit in the alarm, and month by month contract but $135/h to install it. - are they kidding?!

Canceled contract, got told "oh, you still own us $135.00 for 4 months monitoring on your contract" despite the fact they can't monitor my alarm and don't report me faults.

There's a number of other issues that came with the alarm system and monitoring that I won't bother going into...

AlarmNZ - $200 for IP module that talks ContactId, they're sending me the module which I'll put in myself --> SMS reporting to 2 mobiles, $16/m. Month by month contract, web interface to see alarm info. Can monitor the link every 60 mins, not 24 hours.

Just a no brainier!

kingjj

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#415224 9-Dec-2010 19:49

What's your location? Have always had reasonable service from Signature commercially, just curious as to differences in residential. Gone are the days of pots connections and huge call out fees for activations (you would hope), these guys need to update their prices and services.

sbiddle

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#415257 9-Dec-2010 21:15

AlarmNZ are the best bet if you want IP monitoring.

There are going to be plenty of alarm monitoring companies face some serious problems with the UFB rollout when they suddenly realise they've got no customers left on analogue services because everybody is wanting IP monitoring that they don't offer.

DonGould

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#415283 9-Dec-2010 21:56

kingjj: What's your location? Have always had reasonable service from Signature commercially, just curious as to differences in residential. Gone are the days of pots connections and huge call out fees for activations (you would hope), these guys need to update their prices and services.

Christchurch and it is commerical. We're not all running business that are making millions.

...and yes, they need to update prices and services. It doesn't cost more to ip monitor... it should cost less.

DonGould

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#415291 9-Dec-2010 22:06

sbiddle: AlarmNZ are the best bet if you want IP monitoring.

No argument there after talking to Brian Brown-Sharpe this afternoon.

sbiddle: There are going to be plenty of alarm monitoring companies face some serious problems with the UFB rollout when they suddenly realise they've got no customers left on analogue services because everybody is wanting IP monitoring that they don't offer.

It's not even going to take till UFB if you ask me. Here in chch now that they've upped the hfc to 15/2 and base data to 20gb, I'm going to be out there in force pushing 2talk (and I'm going to look at WC) just as soon as I'm happy with the performance and how everything works... it's just an easy sell when you can show people what they can save.

One customer is operating a business with 1 phone line at home and a mobile because they perceive that 2 phone lines is just expensive, and at $50/m for each line (once they load the smart services they need) it is... but at $20/m for VoIP they're going to have 3 lines with One Number on to the mobile with a delayed ring.

It's great for me, by the time I sort out house wiring for bb (1mbit/.45 in a vdsl2 area), sell them an ATA and 2Talk service...

...not so good if you own telco shares...

I've been focusing on web stuff that the market's just nuts, this is a much easier deal.

kingjj

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#415314 9-Dec-2010 22:48

DonGould:
kingjj: What's your location? Have always had reasonable service from Signature commercially, just curious as to differences in residential. Gone are the days of pots connections and huge call out fees for activations (you would hope), these guys need to update their prices and services.

Christchurch and it is commerical. We're not all running business that are making millions.

...and yes, they need to update prices and services. It doesn't cost more to ip monitor... it should cost less.

Wish I was running a business making millions

As it happens I deal with Signature in Chch on behalf of our clients. I've found often that you have to chase them a bit and they don't always complete jobs 100% but our account manager is a nice guy. Do not and would not use them for monitoring though. As with you have found them to be expensive for monitoring, but good value for CCTV.

graemeh

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#415388 10-Dec-2010 09:15

DonGould: Took Signature 2 days just to let me know the alarm hadn't reported in after I sent my 2Talk acc live...

Fault tech didn't follow stuff up as promised...

Got a number of calls today after 7 days of alarm not calling in...

Someone in sales offered upgaded product to link to my alarm that does 'ip monitoring'... 3 year contract, $67/month (just about finished last 3 year contract - $35/m) or $480 bit in the alarm, and month by month contract but $135/h to install it. - are they kidding?!

Canceled contract, got told "oh, you still own us $135.00 for 4 months monitoring on your contract" despite the fact they can't monitor my alarm and don't report me faults.

How is this their problem? You are the one who changed your phone service to one that doesn't support the alarm monitoring.

Most alarm panels only report in every 24 hrs so 2 days is only 2 missed reports.

Does your alarm panel not tell you when it has a "comms failure"? You should have known this before they did.

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DonGould

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#415585 10-Dec-2010 15:10

graemeh: How is this their problem? You are the one who changed your phone service to one that doesn't support the alarm monitoring.

Most alarm panels only report in every 24 hrs so 2 days is only 2 missed reports.

Does your alarm panel not tell you when it has a "comms failure"? You should have known this before they did.

It's sigs prob because I won't be a customer anymore... not much loss really. I'm chicken feed, like most chch businesses I'd have thought.

Yip, I knew about the com's failure, but I was paying them to know too and tell me. They told me that they didn't consider the level of service they provided as acceptable.

Yip, I changed the phone service before I fully understood all the issues.

I just assumed, wrongly, that an alarm that was purchased within the last 3 years would have support for current and future tech. Bit like you just assmed a pc you bought in 1997 would be y2k and didn't check to closely. I was wrong. My fault and now I'm paying the price - $200ug + $140 cancellation fee.

VoIP has been on the cards for 10+ years.

The whole attitude of sig just annoyed me. My mistake for not doing more research when we moved here and choosing a provider that I'd like better.

A chip that talks IP is worth $4 these days?

graemeh

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#415599 10-Dec-2010 15:23

DonGould:
graemeh: How is this their problem? You are the one who changed your phone service to one that doesn't support the alarm monitoring.

Most alarm panels only report in every 24 hrs so 2 days is only 2 missed reports.

Does your alarm panel not tell you when it has a "comms failure"? You should have known this before they did.

It's sigs prob because I won't be a customer anymore... not much loss really. I'm chicken feed, like most chch businesses I'd have thought.

Yip, I knew about the com's failure, but I was paying them to know too and tell me. They told me that they didn't consider the level of service they provided as acceptable.

Yip, I changed the phone service before I fully understood all the issues.

I just assumed, wrongly, that an alarm that was purchased within the last 3 years would have support for current and future tech. Bit like you just assmed a pc you bought in 1997 would be y2k and didn't check to closely. I was wrong. My fault and now I'm paying the price - $200ug + $140 cancellation fee.

VoIP has been on the cards for 10+ years.

The whole attitude of sig just annoyed me. My mistake for not doing more research when we moved here and choosing a provider that I'd like better.

A chip that talks IP is worth $4 these days?

I totally understand you annoyance at their attitude. I have the same view of ADT.

Like you I'm amazed that the alarm industry is so backwards, I was having pretty much this exact discussion with a Chorus Technician last week as he converted my naked broadband back to a clothed version.

When Telecom restart migrating people off their ancient NEAX switches they will have to work very carefully because of things like monitored alarms and medical emergency systems.

Imagine the headlines "Telco xxx kills dear old Doris by breaking her medical alarm". No company will want that.

sbiddle

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#415641 10-Dec-2010 17:40

graemeh: I totally understand you annoyance at their attitude. I have the same view of ADT.

Like you I'm amazed that the alarm industry is so backwards, I was having pretty much this exact discussion with a Chorus Technician last week as he converted my naked broadband back to a clothed version.

When Telecom restart migrating people off their ancient NEAX switches they will have to work very carefully because of things like monitored alarms and medical emergency systems.

Imagine the headlines "Telco xxx kills dear old Doris by breaking her medical alarm". No company will want that.

The problem with VoIP isn't that these devices can't work - it's making them work to reliable level with varying CPE's that can cause issues.

Right now there are plenty of people in NZ running alarms and low speed modems over VoIP connections. TelstraClear's ULL network is a classic example of this where they have deployed a PSTN emulation service - POTS over copper from the exchange to the house, but VoIP from the exchange into their core network and outbound to the PSTN.

The G.711 codec used by VoIP in this case is identical to the G.711 that's been used in the TDM world for the last 30+ years. It's simple G.711 over IP rather than G.711 over TDM.

The problem with FTTH deployments is that they rely on CPE located in the premises. The quality of the average ATA in a house is (argueably) lower than that of a voice line card sitting in a ISAM. If your VoIP provider passes G.711 through without any transcoding then low speed modems can work fine. The biggest problem with alarms is that many use the ContactID protocol which is high speed DTMF tones. Because the standard for DTMF in the VoIP world is RFC2833 the ATA has to convert the DTMF tones to signalling rather than carrying them inband. Because of the high speed of the tones many struggle to do this resulting in problems. Using inband DTMF tones can cause issues if there is any jitter or packet loss on the connection.

DonGould

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#415647 10-Dec-2010 17:56

Steve what you said is basicly what I understood from all the reading I've done. I'm sure I could have switched the alarm to dtmf 4+2 and got it stable enough... but Sig just po'ed me in the end with their attitude so I thought I've give Brian a quick call... I was so impressed in the end I just decided not to bother with the sig crap and change.

Their cancellation fee, given their poor service, has further annoyed me so I'm now going to go on the hunt for ppl to churn... I expect by the time I get to 10 churns I'll be over my hissie fit... ;)

Thanks for the help.

keera

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#422910 31-Dec-2010 11:38

I have a BOSCH system and monitored by signature
Slingshot changed us over to VOIP which i thought great cheaper rates and cheaper monthly plan only to find out its not compatible with out alarm monitoring
I havent contacted signature but have changed back to standard lines and contacted local alarm company who despite the fact whole country is going to be on VOIP by 2012 aparently i.e. 1-2yrs
say BOSCH have a product coming out next year to upgrade but no price yet

sorry i dont quiet nderstand all the speak you guys talk, but has anyone actually got a cheap solution to make alarms talk VOIP?

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Niel

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#422933 31-Dec-2010 12:25

Only 2 real options I know of:

1) Instead of a traditional alarm dialler you use an internet (IP) monitoring system from AlarmNZ. $200 for the hardware and $16 per month. It connects to the internet just like your computer does. If your ADSL modem has only 1 network connector then you also need a router but they are cheap. (You probably have more netowrk connections since you are also using a VoIP ATA)

2) (This is probably for the geeks.) Get hardware that can send an e-mail (like an IP security camera) and direct it to your free home user account at www.alert-me.co.nz who will then send you a TXT so you self-monitor your alarm. You receive the TXT within 3 minutes. You can send an average of 10 TXT per month, and can peak 20 in one month (as long as your average is below 10).

(Alert Manager has lots of other nice things as well.)

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DonGould

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#422960 31-Dec-2010 13:04

keera: I have a BOSCH system and monitored by signature
Slingshot changed us over to VOIP which i thought great cheaper rates and cheaper monthly plan only to find out its not compatible with out alarm monitoring
I havent contacted signature but have changed back to standard lines and contacted local alarm company who despite the fact whole country is going to be on VOIP by 2012 aparently i.e. 1-2yrs
say BOSCH have a product coming out next year to upgrade but no price yet

sorry i dont quiet nderstand all the speak you guys talk, but has anyone actually got a cheap solution to make alarms talk VOIP?

Ok, welcome to my world.

Just been down this track. It's simple to sort out.

You just get Brian from ALNZ to send you one of their alarm monitoring boxes, connect it to the alarm system and turn it on.

Where are you located? Do we need to find a friendly tech to connect it up for you?

From a payoff pov, I figure I'll be back in the black within 12 months due to savings by using AlarmNZ and 2Talk rather than TelstraClear & Signature.

From a performance POV, I get a text when the alarm monitoring goes off line for more than 3 mins. That's much smarter than the ~7 days Signature took.

AlarmNZ even rang my wife last week because the alarm hadn't been set for 5 days just to check if everything was ok. We just hadn't all left the properly in that long. Level of service just puts Sig to shame.

HTH

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keera

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#423336 2-Jan-2011 10:32

Thanks for the tips and ideas guys!

Ive got a bit of time left on my contract with signature so i'll investigate it all and see what the break costs are, because the 2months i was on slingshots 'netxt big thing' or what ever their calling it were actually quiet good

lots of the VOIP stuff for essentially cheaper than current phone 70bucks for 10g and phoneline which included voicemails emailed to you etc

otherthing is isky is a fizzer from being a beta tester i can tell you its crap so looks like easiest system is to do mysky and take the cost, or go to vodafone for net and have it included if your on the 90 or 100buck plan
prob is do i want to sign up for 1-2yrs? and reason i left them last time was service or lack of... hmmm
anywho thanks for all that

any website for ALNZ?

DonGould

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#423451 2-Jan-2011 18:03

Keera, I just canceled my contract with Signature. It is costing me to cancel it, but the savings I'll make in the difference between $17/m and $35/m for the monitoring and $45/m and $11/m for the phone service, mean that I'll be well ahead of the game by the end of the year.

When you wire in your 'PostX' box (that's what they call the IP monitoring box) you need to make sure they put a power switch in it so you can power cycle it if needed (that's something I over looked). The reason you need that is because it uses DHCP to get its IP updates and it would seem you can confuse it if your router gets damaged (I had to just reset my PostX because my router got fried by the power cuts that the earthquakes are causing).

The deal I have signed to with Alarm NZ is that they will text me events. I can't fault them for service. My system went down because of my router problems. They txt me within 75 minutes of my alarm 'PostX' box going off line and actually rang me at 3am this morning and then again at 11am to check that everything was ok. They also rang my wife last week just because they hadn't seen an alarm event for 4 days (which, as we live in the building, just means that someone has been here all that time) that is service well beyond what I expected I was paying for and just leaves Signature in the dust.

www.alarmnz.com is their web site.

I can't recommend the VF/Sky deal. My parents in law were on dsl.tc.nz and moved to dsl.vf.nz to take advantage of that deal and have had nothing but trouble with their net ever since.

Personally I wouldn't be signing any contracts for anything right now. The market is way to unstable and there is way to much on the current horizon for me to be signing my self into locked in contracts at present.

My personal view is that if providers want my committed business right now then they need to keep it keen and keep favour with me. I accept that it's how everyone feels and I also accept that if you're signing up for a deal that involves some sort of bundled installation costs then those have to be covered by a commitment of some kind. (ie, signing up for sky, then stopping it after only 3 months simply isn't economic for a provider if they have to pay someone $200 to come put a dish on your house.)

Happy New Year guys.

D

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