Archive: July 2012

YARMOUTH, Maine—This month we're launching a monthly roundup of legislative news, both state and federal, of interest to security and fire integrators, installers and monitoring companies.The reports will be based on interviews with the legislative team of the Security Industry Association, with occasional commentary from other industry sources. The topic of the reports will vary. We may examine a crop of bills pending in Congress, an executive order, or a Department of Homeland Security initiative.And...

Last summer panel manufacturer Mercury Security filed a lawsuit against Lenel Systems International concerning a contract dispute and alleged copyright infringement. While there was no mention of the lawsuit itself, Mercury and Lenel on July 30 jointly announced a “long-term agreement for access control hardwar I've called both Lenel and Mercury, but have not heard back yet. I understand that both Frank Gasztonyi, co-founder and CTO of Mercury Security, and Steve Wagner, Mercury's VP of marketing...

If nothing else, last week's blog on the 2G sunset served to toss another log on the fire in the debate over how long the technology will last in the face of frequency harvesting by carriers. Among the responses I received was an argument that 2G will remain viable in part due to CDMA-based equipment, which could stick around a lot longer than its GPRS and GMS cousins. "I was reading your 2G sunset blog this morning and wanted to point out that many cellular alarm solution providers support T-Mobile...

PATTERSON, N.Y.—The National Fire Sprinkler Association, the Canadian Automatic Sprinkler Association and the new Mexican Fire Sprinkler Association plan to make history next year by partnering to host what is being billed as “the first-ever North American Fire Sprinkler Expo.”The event will be held next April in Las Vegas in conjunction with the NFSA Annual Seminar.“We want to highlight the three countries coming together,” Russ Fleming, the new president of NFSA, told...

First, Alarm.com recently announced a milestone—that it has more than 1 million subscribers. Now the 12-year-old Vienna, Va.-based provider of interactive security services has announced that it has $136 million in new funding, made by a leading provider of capital to growth-stage technology companies. The company says the investment from Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) will enable Alarm.com to continue to develop new products. Here's more from the news release Alarm.com issued today: The...

MEDFORD, Mass.—Netwatch, a global video monitoring company now operating in the United States, has developed proprietary software that the company says will enable its 25,000 cameras to filter duplicative alarms and, in turn, reduce false dispatches and response times for its customers.The new technology, created in partnership with the Center for Sensor Web Technologies at Dublin City University in Ireland, builds on Netwatch's history of reducing “nuisance” alarms triggered by...

America's elderly population is increasing and is becoming increasingly mobile, with health care technology advancing in lock step. That fact hasn't been lost on the monitoring world, which is gearing up for new revenue opportunities that will accompany the growth of personal emergency response systems (PERS) and mobile PERS devices.According to a recent report by the Central Station Alarm Association, 65 percent of monitoring companies are involved with PERS and senior monitoring at some level,...

SYRACUSE, N.Y.—Double-digit growth at Rapid Response is fueling a two-pronged expansion strategy, with plans proceeding for a new central station in the western United States and $11.3 million of new construction proposed at the company's headquarters here.Last week, the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency granted Rapid preliminary approval for a tax break for its headquarters project. The City Council must still sign off on the deal, which would save the company more than $700,000 over...

Still looking for clarity about the “2G sunset” and whether you'll be left holding the bag if you don't upgrade your cellular alarm communicators to 3G (or even 4G) right now?  You're not alone. The buzz continued last month at ESX, with manufacturers jockeying to try to sway alarm dealers. Telguard, the company sounding the loudest warning about the sunset, went one step further by announcing a program that gives dealers up to $25 for every 2G cell communicator they replace with a Telguard...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill.—A PSAP that controls emergency communications for numerous municipalities around Chicago is reportedly having such problems with delayed response times that dispatchers recently voted “no confidence” in the agency's management.The situation at Northwest Central Dispatch System serves as a good example of why cities and towns shouldn't shut central stations out of the fire monitoring business if they want the public to be safe, according to the head of the...