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Issue link: https://ssn.epubxp.com/i/533616
8 JUne 2015 www.securitysystemsnews.com 2015 Monitoring Source Book Continued from page 3 TRAnSFORMATIOn shift on the fy. It's not simple," Hertel said. "In an IP world [signals] come at once, so you need the capacity internally to deal with that," Springall said. How does DIY and MIY (monitor it yourself) play into the changing world of central stations? Interestingly, DIY installers tend to do a very good job installing their systems and they tend to understand their systems better than the average user, according to the speakers. And those who MIY are likely to become partners to central stations. Springall and Hertel believe the future of central stations lies in automated services and integrations and interacting with customers in new ways. "It really comes down to software development. The way software is developed today is very different than a decade or more ago. You used to be able to design it to do one thing and do it well, then you're done. Now when you design software the questions you have to answer are: 'What is it going to talk to? How can I make it integrate with other things? How is it going to communicate?' That is coming into our world. And it's how we will move forward," Springall said. These integrated applications and automation reduce the amount of human input needed in central station work and this create efficiencies. Some of a central station's "workload will be shifted out to the consumer as well," Springall said. For example, those who do MIY can work with central stations to "pre-verify" that an event is happening. Hertel added that centrals will start to use new ways of notifying people of events through sensor alerts and so forth. "You'll see applications that use push notifications to devices, smartphones, iPads, IVR platforms that speak and listen in English and Spanish and other languages that now interact with subscribers," he said. SMS will be used for announcements and bi-directionally, he said. "I see central stations as a giant IO gate. We've got stuff coming in from all different sources, and stuff coming out and somewhere in the middle there are times when a human has got to take the reins and do the job. But the majority of [the interactions and exchange of information] is happening in the background without human interaction," Hertel said. ssn When dealers concentrate on growing their businesses instead of worrying about staffing complications or keeping up with technology and competition, everybody wins … dealers, centrals, and end-users. At the value and price points offered by third party centrals, a dealer would lose a crucial competitive advantage if they elected to provide monitoring themselves." Michael J. Hackett, Hackett Security, president and CEO, on benefits of the traditional monitoring model "O UR CUSTOMERS LIKE t h a t w e d o o u r o w n monitoring because of the experience. It's that one call from the guy who owns 10 Chicken Lickin' Restaurants or the one call from the LP manager who has 64 stores. The benefit was summed up to me at a lunch meeting with one of our largest customers. He said, 'Thank you for making my job so much easier.' That's really why we have our own central station and we do our own monitoring. It's that LP person or the owner of the Chicken Lickin' Restaurants. They want to make one call to us when [they need a credential added or deleted. When they have a problem they make one call. Our business model] is an integrated offering for the customer." Continued from page 7 expeRTS Michael Hackett Cliff Dice Cliff Dice, CEO of DICE, on the benefits of moving central station infrastructure to the cloud "M OVING TO THE cloud i s n o t r e s t r i c t e d b y t e c h n o l o g y t o d a y, i t 's here, and growing rapidly in 2015. Our cloud center removes the issues of VoIP plaguing the alarm industry and provides a capital-cost-free way to run an alarm center. It removes the need to have PBXs, receivers, phone lines, automation software, servers. Even desk phones are removed. All that is needed is redundant Internet carriers and a PC capable of running a web browser. The center also provides full video monitoring for verification along with traditional alarm monitoring. The alarm center also identifies every alarm panel client telecom provider and graphically keeps track of which carriers are healthy and who isn't allowing us to correct the issues of communication failures. This cannot be done in traditionally installed alarm centers. Our cloud center reduces the cost of running an alarm monitoring center by as much as 80 percent. The cloud center provides receiver engineers who troubleshoot signal flow and programming. Only large dealer alarm centers have these types of people, now anyone hosting has access to these talented people." ssn