Security Systems News - Top Stories

Pro 1 acquires in Southern California

Rich Miller — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:28:14 +0000

Company says acquisition of Custom System Technologies is a good fit

02/21/2012

LONG GROVE, Ill.—Protection 1 recently acquired Custom System Technologies of Indio, Calif. The 1,100-account acquisition helps expand Protection 1’s market share in Southern California, according to Liz Neufeld, VP of billing collections and finance for Protection 1, based here.

“They had some very long-term customers and they had a good, strong relationship with their customers … [and] it fell right in our backyard of the Riverside office,” Neufeld told Security Systems News. She said that Protection 1, one of the largest electronic security companies in the nation with more than 1 million customers, is “very interested in growing our market share though acquisition where possible and where it makes sense.”

The deal, announced in late January, closed Dec. 30, she said. Neufeld declined to reveal the terms of the transaction.

Bryan and April Cochran, the owners of Custom System, founded in 1999, decided to retire from the industry, Neufeld said. “They chose Protection 1 because they really wanted to make sure their customers were taken care of,” she said.

She said Protection 1 will be able to give those customers—a mix of residential and commercial—such amenities as same-day service. Also, she said, “one of the things we definitely will be able to offer to all the residential customers will be our LifeLock partnership.”

Protection 1 announced last summer that it was partnering with LifeLock, an identity-theft protection provider, to help customers protect their identities as well as their homes.

Neufeld said Protection 1 has hired Custom System’s service technician and sales representative. That company’s Indio office will close and the employees will work out of Protection 1’s Riverside location, she said. Custom System had four other employees, but Neufeld said one had previous plans to leave and the others held part-time administrative positions.

She said that with the service tech, “we definitely look forward to making sure he’s serving the same customers he’s been serving, so we can bring that continuity to the customer.”

Ron Davis and Dorsie Mosher of Davis Mergers & Acquisitions Group represented the seller in the transaction.

Schools seek ‘easy button’ approach to mass notification systems

Rich Miller — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:34:57 +0000

02/21/2012

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting incident, colleges and universities in the United States and Canada rushed to implement more robust mass notification systems to better communicate with students and staff in times of emergency.

Initially, those systems sent text messages, emails and automated phone calls. But they were often slow and clunky, susceptible to failure or dependent on unreliable platforms, such as an overburdened local cellular network, according to experts who spoke to Security Director News, the sister publication of Security Systems News, for this story.

Over the years, as money became available, schools invested in their mass notification systems, adding layers of communication that ensure redundancy on top of their existing systems, such as digital signage in classrooms and meeting areas, outdoor and indoor sirens, and social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.

However, more robust mass notification systems have created their own challenges, according to Berkly Trumbo, a national business manager for enterprise solutions and an emergency management specialist at Siemens. Schools added layers to their mass notification systems “without having a road map,” Trumbo said, which has led to problems integrating them all into one solution.

While the need for multiple layers is very real, the reality is that the more non-integrated layers there are, the longer it takes to send an alert, according to Dave Bujak, emergency management coordinator at Florida State University. Imagine having to open multiple user interfaces to activate each layer. Shaving time off that process is a major trend in colleges and universities, Bujak told SDN: "Because when seconds mean the difference between life and death, you can't afford minutes to issue warnings."

Reducing the time it takes to activate its mass notification system is the driver behind Florida State University's "easy-button project," which it has been developing with Siemens for the past two years, Bujak said. The project is "days away" from its launch, Bujak said in late January.

FSU is among the country's most aggressive schools when it comes to developing an integrated mass notification system, Bujak said. The school now identifies 32 layers as part of its system. (To compare, FSU had six layers at the time of the Virginia Tech shooting.) Those 32 layers are broken down into 10 "primary" modes of contact, including the FSU website, desktop alerts, emails, text messages and indoor and outdoor sirens; nine "secondary" modes of contact, which include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, FSU's mobile app, and voice messages; and 13 "tertiary" modes of communication, such as "television media" and "word of mouth."

When the school has conducted surveys following tests or legitimate uses of its mass notification system, Bujak said the responses to the question about which delivery method the student or faculty member received first are across the board. "No one system truly dominates," he said, highlighting the need for a multi-layered approach. "There's a Catch-22 to that—the more systems you have, the longer it takes to activate them."

In a best-case scenario, such as when Bujak is sitting at his desk getting reports of a tornado warning and wants to activate the school's mass notification system, it would take him about 10 minutes to utilize all 19 primary and secondary layers, he estimated. The new “easy button”—literally a box with eight buttons, one per scenario—that would be placed with the campus police dispatchers would allow for a one-click solution. "Two years ago I would push buttons in 10 minutes with full delivery in an hour," Bujak said. "Now, within days, I will be able to push a button in five seconds and have delivery in three minutes."

The new "easy button" system is built on top of FSU's existing infrastructure, which was a project requirement, Bujak said. He looked at many options for an integrated mass notification system, but many required FSU to flush its existing systems and build from scratch, something he refused to do. Since the new "easy button" solution is built on top of FSU's existing infrastructure, if it fails Bujak will still have the manual activation method to fall back on.
Many schools will be watching what happens at FSU. "The desire to be there is universal, and while we're one of the first, I can name off dozens of schools who are intimately watching this project and close to slapping down money and signing contracts," Bujak said.

Beyond mass notification systems, the large schools (25,000 students and more) will look to integrate all safety and security elements—mass notification, surveillance cameras and access control—into one "total campus safety and security solution … for enterprise-level situational awareness," according to Trumbo. "That's the true tip of the spear—where everything is evolving toward," he said. "It doesn't change the culture of the university from the student perspective, but it gives safety and security folks a lot more command and control, real-time actionable intelligence and situational awareness."

Affiliated Monitoring opening new $25m center

Tess Nacelewicz — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:12:48 +0000

Affiliated Central rebrands as Affiliated Monitoring

02/15/2012

MILBURN, N.J.—Affiliated Monitoring is opening a new $25 million, 80,000-square-foot monitoring center here. In trials now, it will be fully operational within a couple of months, according to Mike Zydor, dealer relations manager.

“The new facility will combine with our existing monitoring center in Sheepshead Bay, N.Y.,” Zydor told Security Systems News in an email interview.

Affiliated Monitoring, which has been in business since 1977, was formerly Affiliated Central and has recently rebranded.

The new central station has 1.3 megawatts of power and two generators. “We have three different communications providers [that] enter the building through alternative sites,” Zydor explained. “Everyone should have two, we have three.”

The impetus behind the two-year project was twofold: the need for more space and the desire to expand services to Affiliated’s 1,200-plus dealers.

Zydor said that Affiliated has “made a commitment to redundancy and having the telephony and IP infrastructure to offer all of the interactive services that dealers and end users expect.”

In addition, “the building is designed to be a partner facility for the industry and for our dealers,” Zydor explained.

The Milburn facility includes a conference center that was “based on leading educational and leadership facilities. It is built to the highest level of finish and A/V technology,” he said.

The six-acre site was chosen because it is conveniently located 40 minutes from midtown Manhattan, and close to major airports and highways.

“Our vision is to allow [dealers] to bring their new or major customers and to host any number of events,” he said. “Whether it's training store managers for a dealer's national account or flying in a dealer's senior management to conduct an annual off-site [session], we [want to offer dealers] a tool that no other monitoring partner currently can offer. Additionally, we have an extensive meeting facility for alarm associations to use for meetings and training sessions.”

Designed by Affiliated's management with assistance from a team of experts, Zydor said the center “incorporates the company's 35 years of internal collective experience.”

An architectural firm coordinated a team that included separate specialty firms in engineering, A/V and telecommunications.

“Affiliated hired the foremost expert in unified communications to add further expertise to the team,” Zydor said.

Problems plague Platinum Protection

Tess Nacelewicz — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:32:21 +0000

Summer sales company reportedly laid off employees and is now facing $2m lawsuit from Monitronics

02/15/2012

AMERICAN FORK, Utah—Platinum Protection, a leading summer-sales-model security company based here, reportedly laid off almost all its employees on Feb. 2, including corporate staff, sales representatives and technicians.

And now Platinum is facing a federal lawsuit filed by its primary dealer, Monitronics, demanding more than $2 million that Monitronics says Platinum owes it for bad accounts and loss of revenue guarantees. Monitronics, one of the nation’s largest home security alarm monitoring companies, wants to take possession of 6,255 accounts it says that Platinum still has in house as collateral.

As of early this week, Monitronics was asking a judge to issue an emergency restraining order to help it secure the accounts because it contends those customers can’t be receiving proper service with virtually no staff left at Platinum and no one answering the phones.

Because Platinum and its parent corporation, Platinum Protection-CA, “are in the process of shuttering their business,” the customers are likely to stop paying or terminate their accounts or sign up with another security company, Monitronics asserts in the lawsuit. It wants a judge to order Platinum to refrain from such actions as selling the accounts to another company or modifying its website, which Monitronics said could alarm the customers with those accounts.

The lawsuit was filed Feb. 9 in U.S. District Court in Utah, just one week after Platinum told most of its employees their positions were terminated immediately.

Officials at 6-year-old Platinum did not respond by Security Systems News’ deadline to requests for comment regarding the layoffs and the Monitronics’ lawsuit.

But The Salt Lake Tribune newspaper reported Feb. 2 that Platinum’s in-house attorney confirmed the company had dismissed 65 corporate employees and its sales and technical staff, leaving only a small management team to service existing customers.

And the lawsuit—filed by Dallas-based Monitronics International and two Delaware-based limited partnerships, Monitronics Security and Monitronics Funding—says that Platinum officials told Monitronics that Platinum “had laid off its sales staff and all or almost all of its support staff and [is] unable to pay their obligations to plaintiffs and other creditors.”

Former Platinum employees, who didn’t want their names used, confirmed the abrupt dismissal of staff to SSN.

One former corporate employee told SSN that a company owner told staff, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Platinum is closing its doors and all employees are terminated effective immediately.”

The employee said: “People were bawling. They had never been through something like this before. … There’s no severance, no nothing.”

Other summer sales companies are reportedly hiring some of Platinum’s laid-off sales reps and other staff.

That employee estimated about 600 staff were let go, including corporate, sales and technical workers, but that the company kept on five or six employees to try to figure out what to do with Platinum’s in-house accounts.

The company brought on about 25,000 accounts last summer, that employee said. According to the lawsuit, Monitronics bought nearly 19,000 accounts from Platinum between March and November 2011. Monitronics asserts nearly 1,300 were bad contracts.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Platinum’s attorney wouldn’t give the reason for the layoffs.

But the corporate employee who spoke to SSN said Platinum was in financial distress because Monitronics, which had been buying Platinum accounts since 2007, decided not to do “what they’ve done every single year, which is prefund us for the summer, and give us financing to be able to continue operations.”

Monitronics declined to comment to SSN on that claim.

The employee also told SSN that Platinum was working on an alternate funding plan with CPI Security Systems, a Charlotte, N.C.-based monitoring company. In fact, the employee said that the management team was told Feb. 2 that the reason Platinum was shutting its doors was because CPI decided not to go through with a deal to which it had previously made a commitment to Platinum.

The employee contends that Ken Gill, CEO and founder of CPI, basically pulled funding for the summer just hours before the deal was to be finalized.

But Gill told SSN that was a mischaracterization of the negotiations between CPI and Platinum, which he said ended Jan. 31.

Gill said CPI worked in good faith to try to find a solution that would have benefited both companies, but said negotiations failed due to lack of time, differing goals and other existing Platinum issues.

“If we had not shown up when we did, our opinion is that this would have happened a couple of weeks ago,” Gill told SSN on Feb. 3. “We did not create the situation. We just tried to come in at the last minute to see if we could work with them. They were on life support when we got there.”

Gill said CPI didn’t seriously get involved with Platinum until early January. “It was a very short window. We were working with them for only three or four weeks as we were trying to put something together, and in the end there wasn’t enough time to make it happen,” he said.

He said that CPI, founded in 1976, started a dealer program in the past year and the idea was that Platinum “was going to be one of our entrees into the dealer program.”

He said CPI planned that after Platinum became a dealer “we would entertain another arrangement after we worked together for a year or so.” Gill said what CPI envisioned was something “not much unlike what Devcon and Pinnacle are attempting to do. We were thinking that might have been a way for us to expand our territory and work together on some projects.”

One problem was a disagreement about a time commitment, Gill said. “One of our biggest concerns was that they were looking for a short-term opportunity and we needed a longer-term commitment,” he said. He added that Platinum wanted an arrangement that would end before 2012 was out and CPI wanted a multi-year agreement.

He also said Platinum was “under tremendous financial pressure.” He said it had been selling off its accounts for five years. “They had very little assets and a lot of overhead,” Gill said.

SSN asked Gill if a lawsuit, filed in December by the Securities and Exchange Commission and charging that the two men who provided the startup capital for Platinum six years ago have been running a $220 million Ponzi scheme, factored into CPI’s negotiations with Platinum.

Gill said CPI eventually concluded that with Platinum as an authorized dealer, the SEC’s lawsuit against former Platinum investors Wendell Jacobson and his son, Allen Jacobson, was not something to be worried about. Platinum has said the two no longer are owners of the company.

“We got past that when we realized he [Wendell] was no longer involved. But it is our understanding his involvement played a role in Platinum being in the condition it got into,” Gill said.

He stressed that the owners of Platinum “wanted to make a go of it. … I think people need to understand they were trying hard to avoid this situation.”

“We enjoyed working with them. They’re a great bunch of people, and they’ve got a great staff. It’s unfortunate this happened," Gill said.

Is your cloud provider secure?

Tess Nacelewicz — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:43:28 +0000

TechSec panelists urge due diligence but say risk still resides with the customer

02/15/2012

DELRAY BEACH, Fla.—Security companies questioning the safety of moving their data to the cloud can greatly reduce the risks by doing their homework about service providers and “practicing what they preach” about encrypting, a panel of experts told attendees Feb. 8 at the eighth annual TechSec conference.

Chris Peckham, senior VP and chief technology officer for Kratos/HBE, moderated the session, titled “Is Your Cloud Provider Secure?” Panelists were Morgan Hertel, VP and general manager for Mace CS; Brian McIlravey, co-CEO of PPM 2000, a manufacturer of incident reporting and investigation management software; and Yong-Gon Chon, VP and chief technology officer for SecureInfo Corp., a provider of cybersecurity services.

McIlravey said there was a lot of distrust in the security industry about the cloud, much of it unfounded.

“The security is far greater than open data systems,” he said. “The enterprise-class cloud is very secure. Third parties that hold data take it very seriously—we don’t want it accessed any more than you do.”

The three panelists said that anyone moving data to the cloud should ask their provider for certification and make sure they know what is covered in the service-level agreement, or SLA.

“You need to know what your provider is going to do for you and what you do on your own,” Chon said. “Know what your responsibilities are and what your cloud provider’s responsibilities are. If something goes wrong and my provider is not responsible, shame on me for not knowing.”

McIlravey agreed, saying the same scrutiny of cloud providers should occur internally in the company that is moving data off-site.

“The cloud provider must have certification, but you should be asking the same questions of your IT group,” he said, referring to data access and security.

At Mace, Hertel said that every year the company goes through “the same process, the same testing for our local server as we do with the cloud—logs, controls have to documented. [The cloud] should be no different than if the server was in your closet down the hallway.”

That internal scrutiny should also extend to classifying the data that goes to a third-party site, Chon said.

“You need to differentiate between types of information, which is often overlooked when people move out to the cloud,” he said. “(Companies) need to practice what they preach when it comes to encrypting and protecting. It comes down to classifying the information and practicing that well.”

Chon said the reality is that “you can’t transfer your risk to a cloud provider; it’s still yours. You have to look at it as ‘my body is my temple’—what I put into it is what I get out of it. Ultimately, the risk still resides with you.”

Regardless of industry concerns about the cloud, Hertel said it is here to stay largely because of the savings it can provide.

“When you look at the cost to deploy large-scale enterprise systems compared to the cloud, you can’t not look at it,” he said. “For a few dollars a month, you can avoid investing a half-million in infrastructure. It’s not for everybody, but if you look at the cost to deploy versus using the cloud, it’s almost the only way for some people to go.”

Diebold and DVS on when to use bleeding-edge technology

Tess Nacelewicz — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:57:18 +0000

Kevin Engelhardt and Phil Santore say emerging technology has its rewards, but it also has risks

02/15/2012

DELRAY BEACH, Fla.—In deciding to use bleeding-edge technology, you need to eliminate legacy alternatives, weigh the risks and rewards, ensure all stakeholders are informed and aboard, and then proceed very, very carefully, according to Kevin Engelhardt, VP of security operations for Diebold, and Phil Santore, principal and managing partner for consulting group DVS.

“There’s a reason they call it bleeding edge,” Engelhardt said.

Engelhardt and Santore participated in an educational session called “Implementing Current vs. Emerging Technologies” at the TechSec conference, which took place here Feb. 7 and 8.

DVS and Diebold worked together on two projects at the new World Trade Center, including SAPS (Situational Awareness Platform Software), an identity management and PSIM-type software that was created with Quantum Secure and Vidsys.

Santore defined bleeding-edge technology as “untried, untested, on the drawing board or in a simulated production run.” Cutting edge, on the other hand, is “more sustainable, somewhat proven, it’s out there, someone is using it somewhere. It has more defined expectations,” according to Engelhardt.

The only time to use bleeding-edge technology, the two agreed, is when the client, consultant and integrator are all onboard. Further, it’s vital that the end user is “fully engaged … and the scope and outcome are clearly defined,” Engelhardt said.

That’s essential, Engelhardt said, because there will inevitably “be pain points even in the best relationship and in the best environment.” He said the SAPS project was a great example of where everyone was onboard, but “there were pain points because … the technology evolves, people’s perceptions evolve and the environment evolves.”

Santore called new technology a “tool in the toolbox” that consultants and integrators can find useful, but said a legacy technology can often “do the job just as well, at half the cost, with half the training, and half the headaches.”

What about the role of the manufacturer? It’s important that the manufacturer is fully onboard when using new technology and that they are financially stable. Does that mean that working with startup manufacturers is out of the question? Not necessarily, Santore and Engelhardt said, but it does mean that there are certain places and cases where the two are more comfortable deploying bleeding-edge technology.

“It’s easier to roll the dice” on “edge devices” and in geographic areas where the integrator has a “real core of strong talent,” Engelhardt said.

He also said that integrators need to consider if the emerging technology of interest will “eventually be embedded in the core product,” such as basic video analytics being embedded into cameras.

How do consultants keep informed about new technology? Santore said his company has NDAs with major manufacturers so they understand their product road maps for planning purposes. And smaller, new manufacturers? It’s up to them to contact consultants and make themselves known.

Kenco acquires in Bozeman

Tess Nacelewicz — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:09:35 +0000

Montana security company also installs security system in the All-American Home built to showcase American-made products

02/15/2012

BILLINGS, Mont.—Kenco Security and Technology, an electronic security company based here, recently acquired Securitec Safety Systems of Bozeman, said Dirk Bauwens, president of Kenco.

Also, Kenco recently installed a DMP security system in the All-American Home, a new home being built in Bozeman with products that are predominantly American-made. The project is designed to encourage consumers to buy products made in the United States, increasing jobs here.

Kenco already has an office in Bozeman, but the Jan. 31 acquisition of the 43-year-old Securitec, which had approximately 500 accounts, gives Kenco more of a foothold there, Bauwens said.

“It doubles our market share up in Bozeman,” he told Security Systems News.

Securitec was formerly owned by Dale Miller, who started it in 1969, just four years before Kenco was established in 1973. “We just got to know each other’s companies well by good business practices and he stated that, ‘When I retire, I want to sell to Kenco,’ and [when Miller was ready to retire] he basically called us up and we got a deal together,” Bauwens said. Both companies had a roughly 50-50 mix of residential and commercial customers, he said.

He declined to disclose the terms of the deal.

Kenco, which has about 10,000 customers in Montana and northern Wyoming, had already opened an office in Bozeman about a decade ago, Bauwens said. He said the company previously serviced its large account with the University of Montana in Bozeman from Billings, about 125 miles away.

Bauwens said Kenco, which has about 70 employees, has added Miller’s former two employees to its staff. “Our biggest offering [to customers] is that he was a small company and we’re able to offer now a lot more services with the backing of a larger staff,” Bauwens said.

Securitec had a “great reputation” and many of its customers had been with the company for years, he said.

Just a year ago, Kenco acquired Anchor Alarms of Kalispell, gaining 800 mostly residential accounts and expanding its presence in northwestern Montana.

Kenco this past year also accepted an invitation from DMP to install the security system in the All-American Home in Bozeman.

Digital Monitoring Products (DMP) was selected to provide the security system for the home because that manufacturer’s XT Series burglary/fire/door access panel chosen for the home, like all DMP products, is designed and made in Springfield, Mo., according to a news release from DMP.

Anders Lewendal, a former economist who is now a builder, is constructing the 2,200-square-foot, three-bedroom home entirely from U.S.-made products to illustrate the benefits of buying domestic goods, DMP said.

Bauwens said Kenco was selected to install the system because it’s a DMP dealer. Kenco also is a Honeywell First Alert Professional dealer and carries Bosch products as well, he said. “We select the right product for the right application,” he said.

He said Kenco completed installing the system in January.

Kenco has a 24-hour monitoring center in Billings along with its headquarters, and, in addition to Bozeman, has offices in Helena and Great Falls, Mont., as well as in Cody, Wyo.

Valley Alarm revamps sales organization

Tess Nacelewicz — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:16:15 +0000

Commercial security company plans to grow sales 30 percent to 50 percent

02/15/2012

SUN VALLEY, Calif.—Valley Alarm, a commercial security company based here, expects to grow its new sales 30 percent to 50 percent this year compared to 2011 as the result of a growth plan it’s implementing.

“Historically, we’ve just hired good salespeople, done some training and had spotty marketing efforts and let the salespeople generate business,” said Robert Michel, CEO of Valley Alarm.

It’s an approach that has worked well for the 30-year-old company, which has 7,000 accounts (about 50 percent commercial) and $240,000 in RMR. The focus of the company has always been commercial, Michel said, but it’s picked up a number of residential clients along the way.

Michel and his son Ed, who is VP of the company, took the past year to put together a plan to restructure their sales organization, training, and marketing efforts. They’ve hired an inside salesperson and have plans to hire more salespeople.

In addition to direct mail and telemarketing, a revamped website and outreach through social media are important aspects of the plan, according to Ed Michel. “We used Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Trustlink, a social media site [associated with the] Better Business Bureau,” he said.

Valley Alarm does “everything from simple alarm systems up through and including integrated video and access … and a lot of commercial fire,” Robert said. Ten percent to 15 percent of Valley’s accounts are pure fire.

The “vast majority” of Valley’s accounts are small to medium-sized businesses “and we have some large and some very large accounts,” Robert said. Customers include K-12 schools, colleges and universities, churches, major studios, medical buildings, other commercial and industrial clients and several California state agencies.

Telguard step ahead of ‘2G sunset’

Rich Miller — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:59:57 +0000

Company rolls out new 3G cell communicators, holds line on price

02/14/2012

CHICAGO—The “2G sunset” is coming—it’s just hard to say when. But the 2G fade-out has already begun, eating into the frequency spectrum and posing a threat to the effectiveness of cellular alarm communicators.

Like analog before it, 2G technology—most commonly GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications)—is destined to become a technological footnote. The exact date for the “sunset” will not be determined by the Federal Communications Commission or other government agency; it will determined by cellular carriers based on capacity constraints and customer demand for 3G.

That has injected a degree of uncertainty about the time frame, with the earliest projections putting the sunset four or five years down the road. But the end result is not in doubt: 2G will fade to black.

As it is phased out, devices that rely on 2G will gradually lose their effectiveness due to the “harvesting” of frequency spectrum by cellular carriers. The bottom line for alarm dealers is that the lower frequency band most effective at penetrating buildings is increasingly being allocated for 3G purposes, cutting into signal strength for 2G equipment.

To get ahead of the curve, Telular Corp. has rolled out a 3G line of cellular alarm communicators for residential, commercial and PERS users. Shawn Welsh, vice president of marketing and business development, said six products in the Telguard line are already shipping in 3G, with an added benefit for dealers: The price is the same as 2G.

“The financial impact—rolling trucks, replacing equipment—it’s an expensive proposition,” Welsh told Security Systems News. “We made the decision to completely eliminate 2G and to offer 3G at the same price (because) 3G products do cost more. … Now our security dealers can just install a Telguard product and not have to make the false choice between inexpensive 2G hardware and the longevity offered by 3G.”

Welsh said 3G’s life in the field is important considering that 20 percent of alarm system installations in the United States today are based on cellular technology. Replacing equipment in the event of a 3G sunset could carry costs comparable to 2G’s decline, but Welsh said he doesn’t see that happening any time soon.

“4G is a rebranded 3G,” he said. “Networks being built out now as strictly 4G are just faster 3G, and the change in speed isn’t important as it relates to our industry. By installing 3G communicators, you’re really installing products that are based on the technology that is being deployed for the next 10 or 20 years.”

Bruce Mungiguerra, vice president of sales and dealer development for Monitronics, said that although the 2G sunset probably won’t occur until 2016 at the earliest, dealers would be wise to move sooner rather than later.

“This is a very serious concern for Monitronics and the whole industry, because the replacement of radios will be a financial hit to all security companies,” he told SSN. “The quicker the switch to 3G, the fewer radios that Monitronics and authorized dealers will have to replace when 2G technology goes away. With many homeowners eliminating POTS lines, we’re forced to add cellular communicators to current customers’ homes in order to continue to provide them with their security protection.”

Welsh said the message that Telular is sending to dealers is that the only way to turn over tens of thousands of installations from the old technology to the new technology is to start planning now.

“You don’t want to be the guy who’s stuck in four or so years looking at having to do 64,000 truck rolls,” he said.

Potter Electric does major overhaul of website

Rich Miller — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:59:11 +0000

Relaunch designed for better customer interaction and enhanced functionality

02/13/2012

ST. LOUIS—To enhance navigation and product information for its customers, Potter Electric Signal Co., a developer and manufacturer of life safety products, recently launched a redesigned website.

“Although we’ve continued to keep it updated with fresh content, this is the first major overhaul since 2008,” Eric Lauver, Potter’s communications manager, told Security Systems News in an email interview.

“We were responding to customers who were telling us that they loved the content that was available on our site, but sometimes had a difficult time navigating,” Lauver said. “Our previous site had several different forms of navigation that could be cumbersome to users, so we decided to streamline the navigation to make it more user-friendly.”

Lauver said Potter considers its website “another form of customer service. … We’ve added a quicker navigation, enhanced training options, and better tech resources.”

Features also include updated customer-order tracking. Look for future revisions, Lauver said, “[including] such things as enhanced training services and social media options allowing users to get updates in the ways that are most convenient for them.” The revised site can be viewed at www.pottersignal.com.