Blueface, UPC and Alarm Monitoring

clacey

My configuration is a UPC (15 MB) Broadband and a Linksys SPA 3102 ATA Router. I was having difficulty getting my alarm system to communicate with the monitoring center. It basically rang the control center, connected, completed a handshake, a kiss off and then hung up declaring it a successful connection - yet the monitoring station did not receive my alarm panel's data (the zone information that was triggered). They confirmed that my alarm was calling in but no information was passed. After researching several forums I thought that I was going to have to cease my alarm monitoring as I read about data packets arriving out of synch and the monitoring systems not being able to reconstruct them etc. However I had my alarm company come out for an annual service and they were able to reprogramme the panel with a different data protocol that worked so I thought I'd share this for others that may face the same issue. Basically the panel was talking to the control center using a protocol known as "Contact ID" and they changed this to be "XSIA" which apparently sends much more data than Contact ID, but with XSIA the center was able to see my alarm signal over Blueface/Broadband and note what zones had being triggered etc. They will now be monitoring the heartbeat calls to the center that happen every 48 hrs and validate that they are getting consistent communication from my panel.

Dardania

Thanks for that - very useful info...what protocal are you using on the ATA?

clacey

I am using the default settings of the ATA (basically I have changed nothing, other than the few set-up items advised by Blueface on their technical set-up document for this Linksys ATA e.g. sip.blueface.com etc.)

Cabaal

moving to VoIP