Tag: Verizon

OGDEN, Utah—Freeus, LLC, a wholesale mobile personal emergency response system (mPERS), announced the launch of the next generation of Belle®mPERS, certified on the Verizon 4G LTE network. This device offers the same low-maintenance, easy-to-use features as previous Belle products, along with state-of-the-art hardware and firmware, and IP67 water-resistance.“We are proud to offer the next generation of Belle to provide a solution for the forthcoming 3G turndown,” said Freeus COO,...

Matt Cain, 38Senior investigator—corporate security, VerizonNew YorkWorking as the senior investigator for one of the largest telecommunications providers in the world is something that Matt Cain said has been very rewarding.“Originally, I wanted to be in law enforcement but I took a position in LP catching shoplifters while going to college and never looked back,” he explained. “The more I learned about the industry, the more I learned I had a niche and I moved up very quickly.”He...

Professional security companies proudly point to the good service they give consumers as an important differentiator between them and their giant cableco and telecom competitors. And a new consumer satisfaction survey suggests they don't have to worry about losing that edge to the Cable Guy anytime soon—because it shows new dips for Time Warner Cable and Comcast, and AT&T and DIRECTV don't fare too well, either. The American Customer Satisfaction Index released its annual measure of the communications...

It was big news in 2011 when Verizon got into home security/home automation with the launch of its Home Monitoring and Control service, which did not have a professional monitoring component. Now there's an even bigger buzz because it has now apparently discontinued the $9.99 per month DIY product. Verizon this past October stopped accepting new orders for the product, although it is continuing to let existing FiOS subscribers continue with it, according to the FierceCable website. I haven't heard...

AT&T's 2012 announcement that it would phase out 2G service left most in the alarm industry, well, unfazed. With wireless technology, such changes come with the territory. Moreover, it's not the alarm industry but the mobile phone industry that dictates network “sunsets.” As Lou Fiore, Chairman of the Alarm Industry Communications Commission, put it in a recent conversation: “As long as you go cellular, there is no endgame here.” A few months after the initial announcement,...

AUSTIN, Texas—The penetration rate for U.S. residential intrusion alarm products will increase by 5 percent to 8 percent during the next three years, aided by the entrance of the new telecom and cableco players in the market, according to a recent study by IMS Research, now part of IHS.Adi Pavlovic, security and fire analyst for IHS, told Security Systems News that it's too early to tell how much the new players already have increased the penetration rate, which has been stalled at about 20...

“Is my cloud provider secure?” That's a question security integrators often pose as they move their data off site to the cloud. But another important question they also might want to ask of cloud providers is: “Does the server farm where you're storing my valuable data have optimal fire protection?”As more and more businesses turn to cloud storage, such server farms, also known as data centers, are growing, not only in number but also in size. In fact, some centers cover an...

WALNUT CREEK, Calif.—It's standard practice for security companies to charge customers early termination fees, but now a federal class-action lawsuit is targeting ADT for the penalties it imposes for early termination and also its unilateral price increases on monitoring contracts. The practices violate federal and state consumer protection laws, the lawsuit contends.“Just because something is a long-standing practice doesn't mean that it's legal,” L. Timothy Fisher, one of the...

Annual shipments of proprietary wireless technologies for home automation are expected to double by 2017, but proportionately their deployment in “smart homes” will be cut in half as service providers including ADT and AT&T drive a move toward open standards, according to a new report by IMS Research.IMS projects that shipments of proprietary wireless technologies will grow from less than 3 million nodes in 2012 to 6 million in 2017, primarily due to high-end automation suppliers maintaining...

NEW YORK—With Hurricane Sandy making landfall and forecasters' worst fears coming true, Gene Dellaglio drove out into the night on Oct. 29 to check on SecureWatch 24's new Fusion Centre in Moonachie, N.J. As trees fell and the power grid faltered, he arrived at the central station and prepared for the worst.“I got there just before the storm hit,” said Dellaglio, chief technology officer for SW24, a Manhattan-based security company that specializes in property surveillance and facilities...