Protection Against Smash and Grab - Advanced Pending Alarms
With any alarm system, there's a period of time between when a potential burglary occurs and when an alarm signal is actually sent to the alarm monitoring center.
Here's an example of how a typical alarm system works: the whole process starts when a burglar breaks into a home. This could be by forcing open a door or breaking a window.
Let's take the example of forcing open a door. The sensor will detect activity and send that information to the control panel. Before the alarm sounds, there will be a period of time called the Entry Delay. This is usually 30-60 seconds and is designed to give you time to disarm the system before the siren goes off.
If you don't disarm the system during this time period, the local siren will go off. What most people don't realize is that this typically does NOT mean that a signal is being sent to the alarm monitoring center. There's an additional period of 30 seconds designed to allow you to disarm the system. This is very useful since sometimes people forget the system is armed -- and don't remember to disarm it until being reminded by the siren. It's typically not until the end of this second period (so 1-2 minutes after the break-in occurs) that a signal is actually sent to the monitoring center.
The problem with this, of course, is that it gives an intruder a fair amount of time to find & disable a traditional alarm system before a signal is ever sent. A traditional alarm system can be disabled very easily by simply cutting a phone line or actually smashing the control panel (known as "smash & grab").
Fortunately, there's a solution. Pending Alarms is a next generation feature that virtually eliminates this risk. Here's how it works: the instant an intrusion is detected, a signal is sent to the alarm monitoring center. The signal simply identifies that a burglary MAY be in progress. The monitoring center then is "on the look out" for a disarm signal, indicating that everything is okay. However, if that disarm signal never arrives, the monitoring center will assume that the system has been disabled or destroyed -- and treat it just like a full alarm signal.
Be sure to demand Pending Alarms whenever you purchase an alarm system. Some alarm companies don't offer this service; however, without it there's a very real (and significant) risk that an intruder may be able to compromise and disable your alarm system before an alarm signal is ever sent in an emergency. Which, of course, defeats the entire purpose of paying for monthly monitoring of an alarm system.