On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 17:41:41 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Mar 27, 6:42*pm, mm wrote:
On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:21:14 -0700 (PDT), "

wrote:
Anyone have experience using one of the lower cost security monitoring
services that charge $10 to $15 a month for alarm monitoring, versus
$35 from ADT? * There are a bunch of them available that either can
step you through how to'
change the dial # on the existing system or else give you a small
adapter that sits between the existing alarm panel and the phone
line. *It intercepts the alarm call to the old monitoring company and
in turn dials the new one.

I don't know about that. Unless you cancel ADT, they're going to keep
charging you, whether your alarm calls them or not. *Don't they also
remove their equipment, which they install free?

Well of course you'd cancel ADT.

Then why do you need an addtional adapter between the panel and the
phone line? Oh, is it because the original panel, if it was provided
by ADT, will call only ADT?

Actually, I was using ADT as an
example
of the higher price monitoring companies. ADT and the other
companies
do not necessarily install eqpt for free.

Well, the non-ADT panels will definitely call any phone number you
want, so why the addtional adapater?

It depends on how you
engage with
them, what you need or already have.
They will monitor any system for a monthly fee. If you want a new
system,
then if you pay a higher monthly rate for a guaranteed term of X
years,
then the install for at least some level of system is free. Who owns
the eqpt
after that I don't know, but
somehow I think it's going to cost ADT a lot more money to send
someone
out and start ripping out an old panel which costs them $100. IF they
take
out the keypad, do they fix the holes in the wall?



* Wondering about experiences with

reliability, conversion, hidden charges, contracts, etc.

I have a friend who owns a burglar alarm company with about 700
customers, many that he bought from companies where the owner was
retiring, and others that just swtiched from someone eles. . * He
contracts with a monitoring company, and last I heard he was charing
15 or 20 a month, certainly less than ADT. *

Yes, exactly what I was talking about and looking for experiences
with.



He likes to put his own alarm panel in very location, but doesn't
charge. *Now they have panels where he can make most changes without
going to the customer.

I'm not sure if he removes his equipment or not when somoene cancels.

When my brother bought a house in Dallss 20 years ago, he didn't sign
up for monitoring, and I can see that. Wasn't much crime in his
n'hood, but I thought he shoudl still use the alarm and siren when he
went out of town. *So my first day vistiing, I turned it on and tested
it, and it rang, and then I went to go bike-riding. *I didn't realize
the old monitoring company's phone number was still in the alarm, if
they called the house on the phone, the number was changed when my
brother bought the house a year or two earlier.

So the police showed up. *It was pitiful. *Even though I was taking
his bicycle out of the garage, via the alley, when they came, they
seemed not at all suspicious. *I had a key to the house but they
didn't ask if I did. *And I know my brother's last name, but they
asked for no evidence I have the same last name (if they even knew his
name). * I guess because I'm white, and maybe because I was 45 and
looked at least 35.

He should re-route the phone line around the panel to prevent that
from happening again.

My brother doesn't know how to do anything like that, and he really
didn't want me touching the alarm after that. But I would think that
after they sent the police once and he still wouldn't subscribe, that
the company would stop providing that service for him even if the
alarm called them again.

BTW, I forgot (oh, I didn't forget. Oops.) to say that I wasn't going
to try too talk him into the montoring, only into using the alarm and
the siren, which was plenty loud and free (and may have had a timer,
though I didn't get that far in my thinking.)