Having a security system alone won’t provide you with dispatch services for police, fire, and ambulance which is why people pay for monitoring. In the event of a medical, fire, safety, or other emergency, alarms notify monitoring services, which then contact local emergency services so they can respond. This all works well unless your system isn’t really connected to a monitoring service.

In the past few months our team in the field has come across home owners that are being deceived by companies claiming to provide “alarm monitoring." They are being charged for monitoring services, however, upon further investigation, their panels were not being monitored at all. Now this may be outright fraud, but the more likely situation is that many of these companies have more or less gone out of business, continue to charge people, but have not kept up their end of the bargain.

The three homes that we found had working alarm systems, their residents used them daily, but they had no idea that what they were paying for each month wouldn’t help them at all when they really needed it. Our local engineers did a system test, everything was working, but then they performed a telephone line test and got this message—“The number you have reached has been disconnected…”—what a shock to the residents when they found out they did not have the alarm monitoring service they signed up, and paid for every month.

This situation highlights the importance of regular alarm system tests and working with reputable and licensed security companies. Even with a perfectly responsible security service provider it is important to conduct regular tests as there are many factors which can impact a panel's ability to communicate with the central station (discussed bellow).

How to test your system:

Most of the alarm companies will give you a number to the central station. The simplest and most effective way to test your system may be to call your alarm company and tell them that you would like to do a test of your system, then set off your alarm, wait a minute, then call then central station and verify that they received the signal.

Most systems have a phone test that allows the security system to test the connection between the panel and the monitoring station without having to contact the monitoring station before hand. In any case, check your alarm system manual for instructions or contact your alarm monitoring company.

The GE Concord panels we install can be tested to customers by:

1. Disarm the system
2. Press 8 + the master CODE + 2
3. The touch pad will display "PHONE TEST"
4. The system will display the results of the test

You should test your alarm system at least monthly. Our panels can also be configured to automatically conduct a phone test on a periodic basis (e.g., weekly). This is a nice feature we incorporate, which is usually reserved for commercial installations, but is definitely a good practice on residential systems.

What if your system fails?

There are may reasons why your alarm system can fail to send a signal to the central dispatching station. Some of these may have nothing to do with your alarm company. Changing the wiring of your phone system, upgrading to voice over IP (VOIP) or the cable companies phone service can inadvertently foil your alarm panel. Adding DSL Internet service can also interfere with your alarm panel functionality if not setup properly. That is why it is important to contact your alarm company before you make any changes to your phone or data service.

Be sure to do a manual phone test of your alarm system after ANY telephone, Internet, cable or other wiring work is completed on your home. Test the system while the technician is still on-site so any issue can be resolved quickly. Frequently, technicians inadvertently disable lines that are essential to maintaining your security system or phone lines that would cause monitoring to fail. Make sure you do a phone test so that you can insure your system is functioning properly.

Urban Alarm is always there to help with regard to your security and access control needs. Just give us a call at 202-265-2700 for further assistance. Even if you are not a customer we can track down instructions for testing your alarm system.

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