The Game Changer
IP and cellular fire alarm communications make a difference
- By Stacy Deveraux
- Jun 01, 2012
What hasn’t already been said—
numerous times—about the
supposed imminent demise
of the U.S. hardwire public
switched telephone system and new fire
alarm communications technologies?
About four years ago, IP fire alarm
communicators came on the market,
followed by cellular devices becoming
more readily available two years later.
Dealers’ use of IP and cellular communicators
picked up slowly. Adoption
by what NFPA calls an Authority Having
Jurisdiction (AHJ)—an individual such
as a fire alarm inspector—was even slower.
However, manufacturers of the more popular
IP/GSM devices are seeing huge upticks in demand
as many dealers across the country have
reportedly started to use this new technology to
their advantage to expand current customer offerings
and, more importantly, win over new accounts.
“Once a couple facilities near to each other cut
the phone lines and go with IP or cellular fire alarm
reporting, it seems word of the big cost-savings
benefits starts to spread quickly among local
property owners,” said Gene Pecora, director
of customer marketing at Honeywell Fire
Systems. “And once dealers understand
how easy some of these communicators
like the IPGSM-DP are to set up,
this ‘new money-saving technology’
becomes a top-selling tool for them.”
Concern over GSM communications
and recent claims of its possible
“sunset” or discontinuation is a topic
currently creating a lot of controversy
within the fire alarm industry. The GSM Association
estimates 80 percent of the world currently uses
GSM technology when placing wireless calls, which
amounts to nearly 3 billion people worldwide.
“There are other types of cellular technologies
out there, but none have the proven track record of
GSM. This tried-and-true method is not going away
anytime soon,” Pecora said.
Fire alarm and security integrator ASG Security
in Wilmington, N.C., pitched the cost-saving benefits
of transmitting fire alarm signals via GSM to
the owner of a large apartment complex protected
by 17 fire alarm control panels. By eliminating two
phone lines per control panel, ASG illustrated a
cost-savings of nearly $18,360 a year. This not only
won the company the job, but the fire alarm maintenance,
testing and monitoring contracts for the
whole complex, too. Soon, others followed.
“It’s crazy. Since that time, we’ve made five more
sales,” said Justin MacDaniel, an ASG sales consultant.
“We had one small family business call us because
they wanted to switch their phone over to IP,
but their fire alarm was the snag. Now their fire alarm
communicates over that same IP line, and in eight to
10 months, they’ll see that return on investment.”
Dealers are starting to see IP and cellular communicators
not only as valuable sales assets but also
as problem solvers that are less challenging than
dealing with plain old telephone service (POTS)
lines. Mark Popkowski, president of Modern System
Concepts in Houston, describes a current project
involving the monitoring of fire alarm systems
throughout a high-profile company’s multiple highsecurity
facilities.
“When this company upgraded its internal
communication structure to VoIP, it caused many issues with their monitoring,” Popkowski
said. “We’re now in the process
of converting everything to an
IP solution for them. Considering
all the issues that we’re seeing pop
up with changeovers to voice over
IP, IP and cellular communications
are proving to be more reliable for
transmitting data.”
Fire alarm communicators capable
of offering two different communication
paths—IP as primary and
GSM as backup—appear to be gaining
the respect of AHJs. Enhanced
pathway supervision is another plus.
“Initially, our local AHJ was interested
but hesitant to ditch the
phone lines. He’s taking a lot of responsibility
in his hands when signing
off on this new means of communication,”
MacDaniel said. “The
IP/GSM unit we use checks in so
frequently—every five minutes—
and that was what made the fire
marshal comfortable.”
As for AHJ approvals, the preference
is to involve local authorities
from the start. Many dealers pioneering
the use of IP and GSM communications
within their markets
have reportedly gone so far as to get
local authority acceptance prior to
approaching potential customers.
Companies looking to grow
their monitoring business are starting
to see the growth potential IP
and cellular reporting offer. Brian
Sheely, president of Innovative Life
& Safety Solutions, grabbed hold of
this concept, and, after nearly three
years, landed his biggest client to
date—the federal government.
“We approached the head fire
protection engineer for Government
Services Administration in 2009,”
Sheely said. “Using their own data,
we documented their current expenditures
and were able to show the
positive impact these upgrades would
have on their operational budget.
The savings start to snowball pretty
quickly for a federal agency that operates
and maintains over 3,500 government
buildings worldwide.”
Sheely noted that money-saving
benefits are available if access to IP
network lines already exist but cautioned
that those who take advantage
of such lines need IT’s acceptance.
“Be sure the facility’s IT people
are involved at the beginning and
they buy into the fire alarm sharing
that line,” he said.
Declining numbers of POTS lines
aside, the sales potentials IP and
GSM fire alarm communications
offer dealers to acquire new customers
is too big to be ignored. An increasingly
fast adoption rate by AHJs
in geographical pockets across the
United States opens the window for
virtually any fire alarm application,
anywhere.
MacDaniel summed it up best: “I
have not seen anything in the market
that has caught on so fast and offers
such a quick return on investment
for end users and installers.”
This article originally appeared in the June 2012 issue of Security Today.