DALLAS--Monitronics International, a provider of residential alarm monitoring services, announced on March 13 the addition of Toronto-based manufacturer DSC as its third preferred manufacturer partner. "We have always limited our program to two partner manufacturers, being Honeywell and GE," said Reginald Blakely, product manager for Monitronics. "The premise of the partnership [with DSC] is to enhance our dealer base or the number of dealer partners our company has."

Blakely said the companies have been in discussion for about six years, but "only in serious consideration for the last 60 days."

Blakely said the partnership is effective immediately. However, Blakely said, he expects the partnership to take several months before it becomes visible to the market. "We have customized products with GE and Honeywell and we probably won't have any customized products [with DSC] before the end of '08," he said.

Blakely expects the initial partnership will impact Canadian dealers before it affects the U.S. market. "We have a number of potential dealers in the Canadian market who want to use DSC products so we have forged this partnership to allow them to use DSC products without any problem," he said.