Is your alarm panel missing self tests or in COM FAIL?

SUBJECT:  ANALOG PHONE LINES VERSES DIGITAL VOIP PHONE LINES

Is your alarm panel in COM FAIL or missing self test signals?

Often when you are having phone line communication issues with your alarm panels it is due to switching to digital phone lines and then the alarm panel goes into trouble.  The quickest fix is to install a cell unit to take care of this.

1.       Analog POTS (Plain old Telephone service) traditionally have about 48- 54 volts on the line and it is copper wire coming into your building and the line can be set up to be taken over when it needs to seize the line.

2.       Digital phone lines or VOIP lines will give you a dial tone but the voltage is much lower and often the alarm panels will not see 18 volts where they will see 54 on the line so they go into COM FAIL or communication failure. SIP lines will work better than VOIP with a computer talking to a computer although SIP does not have UL listed fire alarm battery backup nor can it seize the line.

3.       Typically the fire panel needs 2 analog lines and security panels use one and much of the time alarm panels will not work well with digital lines. Analog phone lines normally cost around $50 per month per line.

4.       When you are not paying $100 per line that is a good sign that the lines are not analog. Your phone company may tell you that they have converted them to analog although be aware that these digital lines that they tell you  are analog work well for voice calls but they cut the top and the bottom of the wave off so not all the signals are sent.

5.       You can also communicate over an AES radio or over the network although with AES you cannot arm and disarm remotely on your security systems and often the fire marshal will not allow fire alarm to communicate over the Internet since the internet equipment does not have UL listed backup equipment as is needed to meet code requirements.

A fix for this situation is installing a cellular communicator so you won’t relay on your phone line at all. Most of the time this takes care of the COM FAIL signals and gets you back up and running without missing test signals any longer.

The information above is basic information and not technically meant to be exact, it is a general information sheet. I welcome any corrections or additional information.

For more information you can do a simple search on the Internet and get additional information.

It is best to have a security company come out to your home or business and do an evaluation to determine the different options for you.

CONTACT : Larry.Love@JCI.com 801 898 6003

Larry’s security blog is at www.larrylovesutah.com