NACC rolls out interactive service

IRVINE, Calif. - In what it expects to be the next generation of the monitoring market, National Alarm Computer Center has rolled out a new Interactive Vi-deo Monitoring service for its dealer customers that it eventually expects to outpace the revenue potential of traditional alarm monitoring. With its new IVM offering, and a new IVM manager on board to head up the service, NACC expects to have about 100 dealers on board with the service at the end of the year, said Steve Baker, president of NACC. “There is potential here for 25 to 30 percent growth each year” in IVM, Baker said. While traditional alarm dealers have already shown interest in the service, which works by integrating video and broadband, most of the growth expected through IVM is from integrators heavily involved in CCTV who are not monitoring accounts and are looking for a stream of recurring revenue, he said. For now, NACC has few competitors in the contract monitoring space, with most interactive monitoring providers also active in the installation sector. Baker said he expects the marketplace to become crowded very quickly, but expects that NACC’s offering, including its software technology partner, Spokane, Wash.-based Cascadia, will set it apart in this burgeoning sector. Colin Campbell, Cascadia’s chief executive officer, said the two companies had been working for nearly the past two years to develop the software applications that would connect Cascadia’s DVRs with NACC’s monitoring operations. Either through Cascadia or via one of that company’s distribution partners, dealers and integrators can purchase equipment. End-user financing through NACC is also available, so integrators can market a $50,000 to $60,000 system as a $400 to $500 a month payment, Ba-ker said. Colin Foster, vice president of Virtual Security Services in New York City, is using IVM to monitor 122 units in two apartment buildings in Harlem, located in a high-risk crime area that has been home to major drug traffic. Since the installation of the two building’s 18 cameras and monitoring of the system began, “the actual drug activity in public areas of the building has been virtually eliminated,” Foster said. “We have captured video footage of dealers selling drugs and removed two of the tenants,” Foster said. “Without that video,” he noted, “it would typically have taken years to go through the court process without the proper proof.” Because of the success of the two initial installations, the owner of the apartment buildings is also looking at adding cameras and IVM to two other buildings through Virtual Service, Foster said.