Got security system about 1 1/2 years ago. It is hooked to a modem with our internet and phone line. When on phone, the call drops, can’t hear the person and call gets busy signal, people call and get fax machine(we don’t have one). Security system tech has came out, put new panel, checked a few times, and blames AT&T. Technicians from AT&T have came out several times and blame security system. We bought two new phones in last year, and on third modem. Now AT&T won’t come out unless we pay $99 charge for visit. They said we have to get a potch line put in. Cost a lot, and will have to pay more every month. Didn’t have trouble with our phone service. It was two months after we got security system that the trouble started. Really need my phone service because I don’t have a cell phone. Please help
MY secuirty system is just hooked to the phone line. I think that is good enough. What is the advantage of being connected to the internet....what does that even mean?
Whatever it means, I think you can do without it.
I have an internet modem too and my FIOS phone is connected to it, but there is no need to drag that into the alarm connection. The alarm is juust connected to the same two wires the telephone is connected to.
You have had breakins while you're on the phone? Or your just testing to see what happens? Most breakins won't happen while I'm there. If it's a home, they break in while people are away at work. if it's a business, they break in when people have left for the day. And the odds are slim that someone will be trying to leave a message when there is a breakin, but if thhey are, you should still see who called from your caller-id record or the start of their messsage, or they can realize their call was interrupted and call again.
So they'll call again.
My phone line was in the basement and so was my burglar alarm. But I moved the computer upstairs and for other reasons, when I got optical internet, I moved the phone line upstairs, and I only have one corded phone upstairs and 3 cordless phones. So now, to connect the burglar alarm to the phone, I had to run a wire from the basement to the 2nd floor. I don't like that, BUT if I wanted the alarm to interrupt my phone calls, I'd have to run the wire up those two flights, then down, then up again.
Really not worth it for reassons above. So if perchance I was on the phone when someone broke in, I'd hear the phone being "dialed" by the alarm, and I'd know someone had broken in. Then if I yelled, I think he would leave. Otherwise, if the phone line is busy because someone is leaving a message, iirc the alarm waits and calls again in a couple minutes. Yours might do that whether mine does or not.
Sounds easier to get a cell phone, a smart phone. They are very handy, especially for phone calls and google maps when you are in the car. Finds nearby restaurants, gas stations, movie theatres, booksstores, liquor stores, whatever you want. Especially good when you are out of town and don't know where everything is. But evren in town, you can look up the phonenumbe on the phone, then call up a restaurant and order take out, so you don't have to wait once you're there. Or you can check how early or late some place is open.
Mint Mobile is good and iirc $15 a month for the first 3 months and continuing if you pay by the year. Tell 'em Micky sent you and I get a free month.
It's not clear how this alarm system is connected to a "phone line" and internet. Decades ago these alarms were connected in series with the copper phone lines where they entered the house. That way if an alarm call had to be made, the system could disconnect the rest of the home phone wiring from the line, cutting off any ongoing calls, to make it's emergency call. Then VOIP started to roll out and there were problems because the VOIP phone adapters would not work reliably with the alarm system modem. Today new systems generally connect to the internet directly.
Couple of solutions. If this is an old panel that wants a copper phone line, there are companies that sell adapters that will go between that and ethernet, but that may require getting a different monitoring company. There are low cost ones you can find online, they probably provide the adapter and you can save $$$ monthly like $10 instead of $35. Or get a new panel put in that doesn't connect to the phone.
This all makes sense. I probably have what's considered an old board. Even when the phone and alarm were both in the basement, only 20 feet from each other, I didn't try using the alarm to seize the line, for the reasons in my other post. The need for the alarm to seize the line just seemed too small. BTW, the point of that is not what I implied. It's not so much for calls in progress or messages being left, but so a burglar can't pick up some extension and prevent the alarm from calling the police or monitoring company.
When we had dial phones, just picking up a phone before the alarm had dialed all its numbers would keep the alarm from dialing out. With touch-tone, picking up another extension doesn't interfere with dialing but pressing even one number on the keypad will. (Unless the last 4 numbers are for example, 2222, and the burglar presses a 2.)
So seizing the line fills an important niche in security, but it seems to me to fulfill the least likely of situations.
For most targets, including perhaps the OP (we don't know if it's a business or a residence, and if a residence, if it's a bungalow or a
30-room mansion with diamonds in the dresser), I don't see the burglar as so experienced that the first thing he does is pick up an extension. And that would not stop my (or his) sirens from going off. Or the alarm from dialing again later, if they do that. (It's also affected by whether the burglar goes in via a delay-entry, like the front door, that gives maybe 30 seconds, any other entry that starts the process immediately, and how far from the entry point is the nearest phone.)
So I like your ideas, but something he can do today without shopping and without spending any money, until he gets around to your ideas, is just connect the alarm phone output in parallel with the phone , including a voip phone (which is what I have and the system I describe works**.)
I don't know how they connect things to the internet, but for the phone, there is an incoming wire and an outgoing one. They may both be there. Be sure to disconnect the incoming, from the phone itself to the alarm board, and leave the outgoing, from the board to the phone line. The markings on the board might be enough, or whatever docs you alarm company gave you, but if not many boards have their notes on the internet. If you're not sure you have it right, you can test it and see if the alarm dials out. You should test all parts of the system anyhow, although I guess you do that or you wouldn't know you have a problem.
** I set the alarm off twice this summer, by frying hamburgers in a fry pan. The first time, the monitoring company called me and I told them the password and that it was nothing. The second time, they didn't bother to call me and the fire department came. So until I go out of town, I've disconnected the alarm from the phone The smoke detector otoh is hardwired to the alarm. That detector is the one in the 2nd floor hall that was installed in the new house, 44 years ago, and it still works well. 35 years ago I took it away from the ceiling and connected a relay primary across its buzzer and the relay secondary trips the fire section of the burglar alarm. (but I didn't have monitoring until 5 years ago.)
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