Monitoring Your Home for Alarms and Emergencies

Professional Alarm Monitoring

It is essential to understand how your home security provider monitors: whether it’s an internal function, or one outsourced to a specialized monitoring firm, as well as how reputable the monitoring is, and what redundancies are in place.

A typical security system has sensors around your home that communicate with a control panel, which in turn sends any alarm signals to a central monitoring station.  With FrontPoint that signal is routed to Rapid Response Monitoring, one of the most highly regarded monitoring centers in the country.  At Rapid Response, a trained operator receives the signal and takes the appropriate steps given the situation: dispatching police, fire, or medical help.

Monitoring Approvals and Authorizations

Rapid Response is one of the top rated monitoring centers in the country and has achieved numerous industry approvals and levels of authorization, including:

•    Department of Defense approved
•    Underwriters Laboratories Inc. tested
•    Factory Mutual approved
•    New York City Fire Department approval for commercial buildings

Only a few monitoring providers have achieved authorization to monitor commercial fire systems in New York City.  This distinction speaks to Rapid Response’s high quality and security monitoring capability.

Monitoring Redundancy is Essential

Redundancy in home security monitoring is extremely important because it means your provider will have the proper backup systems in place in case of any emergency.  This includes backup for:

•    Electrical power
•    Telephony
•    Internet access
•    Computer servers
•    Environmental conditions

Rapid Response does have redundancy across all these categories to ensure that every alarm signal receives the proper response. 

Alarm Verification

Alarm verification, the process to make sure that any alarm signal is legitimate, is regulated by many states and is becoming more stringent in some areas.  In most places, the central monitoring station is required to call each customer to verify an alarm, and usually must attempt to call at least two numbers: normally a home phone line and a mobile line.  Verification is critical to local first responders by helping to prevent emergency personnel from responding to false alarms.

You can learn more about alarm systems in the FrontPoint Security 101 Podcast, How Alarm Systems Work.

Or feel free to contact FrontPoint to request a free home security quote or to ask a home security question.