CP-01 becomes standard for false-alarm reduction

Offering alarm control panels that meet the requirements of the ANSI/SIA CP-01-2000 standard is becoming the norm as manufacturers accept the likelihood that states and municipalities will adopt this false alarm reduction measure (see related story, page 1). CP-01-2000, as laid out by the American National Standards Institute and the Security Industry Association, requires control panels to be preprogrammed to extend both entry and exit delay times. "We're starting to see a lot of traction with [CP-01] now," commented Tom Mechler, product marketing manager-intrusion control at Bosch. "Last year it was just something that you thought about." Mechler said the plan by Texas to put the standard into place for 2007, as well as its consideration by other cities and states, has driven manufacturers to add CP-01 compliant products to their control panel lines. Jim Paulson, general manager of intrusion and access products at GE Security, said the company offers a couple of products that are compliant with the standard: the Concord 4, which was released within the past six months; and its NetworX V2. Although the products meet the requirements outlined by ANSI/SIA, Paulson noted they also put some limitations on installers because of the preprogrammed nature. "It takes away some of the functionality," said Paulson, who noted legacy products haven't had to comply with the standard. He added that the migration to a CP-01 compliant panel "is something that you do so you don't have to sell two products." For the moment, said Paul Martin, director of marketing-commercial products, Honeywell is offering intrusion control panels that have the optional ability to comply as well as ones that are compliant and don't offer the option to override the pre-sets. Like Paulson, Martin said the requirements outlined for CP-01 panels "still put a lot of restrictions on the installer and the end user." As far as the breadth of enactment of the standard, Martin said, "We have seen pockets of jurisdictions adopt CP-01." As a Canadian-based manufacturer with an international clientele, Clint Rodenbush, sales manager for Paradox USA Security Systems, said the rest of the world isn't as excited about CP-01 as are American customers. "It has come up as a concern," he acknowledged, but hasn't become a part of Paradox's panels. "Is CP-01 effective? Sure it is," said Rodenbush. "There is false alarm reduction." But he noted there are other features that can be added to control panels that can also be effective in the effort to squelch false alarms. For example, he said, setting up a system so at least two different sensors must be triggered within a given time period before activating the alarm is one way to address it. Another can be through developing new, smarter parameters for the "stay arm" and "stay delay" features, he said. A working draft for revisions of CP-01-2000 was developed on March 30 and is posted on the SIA Web site.