Security Electronics & Networks > News > Alarm Monitoring: PSTN will Linger

Alarm Monitoring: PSTN will Linger

11 Jun 2010

by: By John Adams

Last issue we reported on AT&T’s push to have the U.S. Government paint a finishing line for that nation’s POTS network, a move that would have serious ramifications for the alarm monitoring industry. But while the call has ruffled feathers in the U.S. local companies see dialler reporting continuing into the long term.

IT’S obvious that there are ramifications for the local market in the growing pressure being placed on the U.S. Government to close the POTS/PSTN network. It makes sense that duplicating infrastructure by operating a switched PSTN network while at the same time operating an adjacent IP network is a waste of money – particularly given the limitations of PSTN.

But for local companies, the thinking is that any closure of PSTN in Australia is a long term issue. According to Videofied’s national manager, Brad White, in Australia it will be less sudden and more gradual ‘sunset’ than in the US. Videofied, which specialised in video verification, has a business that is 100 per cent GPRS/GSM.

“The reason for the gradual sunset will be the nature of Australia’s telecommunications network and infrastructure has been managed and maintained by a national operator, unlike in the US,” White explains.

“The U.S. POTS infrastructure and its quality varies significantly from State to State as there was never the same level of collective investment by the US Government for a quality national POTS network.

“The US needs a dramatic and collective national response to POTS to overcome the shortfalls of various States in the US.”

In the U.S. AT&T says the U.S. Government’s plan to extend broadband to every American home means PSTN must be closed down so all its efforts can be directed at supporting broadband infrastructure rather than trying to operate a switched network and an IP network at the same time. White agrees this same imperative applies here but there are differences.

“The same thing applies in Australia but I think the National Broadband Network rollout across the entire country will inevitably be plagued with all sorts of unforeseen problems affecting the rollout timetable. Consequently, this IP network may not seen as soon as scheduled.”

According to a recent report in betanews, approximately 25 per cent of American households have abandoned POTS altogether, and another 700,000 lines are being cut every month. These numbers might sounds unlikely but betanews says that official figures show that “from 2000 to 2008, the number of residential switched access lines has fallen by almost half, from 139 million to 75 million”.

“Non-primary residential lines have fallen by 62 per cent over the same period; with the rise of broadband, few customers still need a second phone line for dial-up Internet service,” says the report.

“Total interstate and intrastate switched access minutes have fallen by a staggering 42 per cent from 2000 through 2008. Indeed, perhaps the clearest sign of the transformation away from POTS and towards a broadband future is that there are probably now more broadband connections than telephone lines in the United States.”

It’s a somewhat different picture locally, with figures published by A. C. Neilson suggesting Australian Internet usage increased from 34 per cent of the population in 2000 to 80 per cent in 2009. Interestingly, while it’s thought 90 per cent of Australian homes retain PSTN phone services the younger demographic is swinging rapidly to wireless.

The numbers tell their inviolate story. With more than 80 per cent of Aussie homes connected to the Internet and 50 per cent of Aussie ISPs offering VoIP services as part of a bundled service, there is a case that eventually, most Australian homes will use wireless or Internet as their primary communications paths.

White believes the majority of Australians will be more inclined to adopt wireless technology as a bundled package as opposed to a fixed internet connection.

“Mobile phones – wireless - will likely be the predominant replacement for the humble landline, with IP VoIP having a much smaller level of take up,” White explains. “The residential land-line hardwired internet will be adopted by those prepared to pay for the street connection to a fibre network.

“Advantages to this connection will be IPTV and faster/wider bandwidth internet but the wireless option will likely far exceed those who opt for a more stationary connection. Wireless technologies are evolving, and so are Australians with the younger generations likely to be more transient the less rooted at a dwelling for a period that will justify the outlay of the street connection,” he says.

The technologies White thinks best fits the bill as a post-PSTN Carrier of Last Resort in Australia are GPRS and EDGE data transmission.

“The costing model of GPRS/EDGE makes it a stable and affordable solution to the M2M market for now and into the future, not just for Australia, but throughout the world,” White says.

“It is the world stage that dictates what Australia needs to consider as the telecommunications M2M standard. Until such time as the world sets another standard mobile protocol, GPRS and EDGE will be the ever present bread-on-the-telecommunications-dinner-table.”

Given the improvements in technology over the past decade it’s increasingly possible to argue using multiple carriers for monitoring services is overkill with IP services able to offer five-nines uptime.

But there are still many questions unanswered. NBN Co, which is responsible for the roll-out of the $A43 billion National Broadband Network across Australia, recently told Security Insider Magazine that it had not yet given specific consideration to the issues the security industry faces when driving monitoring services across its terrain.

But White says the wireless option of GPRS/EDGE communication paths and the natural evolution of the wireless mobile data medium should nullify any concerns with this potential IP issue.

“The likelihood is that IP Ethernet communication will become the standard primary communication path for alarm panels with a wireless redundancy,” he says. “Interface modules will easily accommodate simple alarm transmission data over IP, and it should not be considered necessary to proactively seek alternatives.

“A united, industry-wide approach to the future of monitoring communications paths will best serve the security industry, but it must also serve the greater good of the consumer,” White explains.

“The costing model of GPRS/EDGE makes it a stable and affordable solution to the M2M market for now and into the future, not just for Australia, but throughout the world”

One of the toughest things about replacing the POTS/PSTN system is that in combination with a digital dialler it constitutes a broadly universal standard – there’s no proprietary solution needed to handle it, just industry standard receivers.

The question arises as to whether a global wireless standard is required before the alarm monitoring industry gets to a broad level, or whether the industry could manage with multiple proprietary reporting systems in a single monitoring station.

White thinks Australia should wait and see what the rest of the world is doing about a global wireless standard.

“Once this is determined, standard-based equipment will be mass produced and consequently provided cheaper to the Australian security M2M marketplace. This determination can then assist to form a standard for digital monitoring receiver platforms,” White says.

Instructively, if he had to choose now, White would support GPRS as the next-gen monitoring technology.

“GPRS is the 2.5G M2M solution for the reasons of price, reliability, and world standard,” White says. “In fact GPRS has won the global war over all other standards; we saw what happened with CDMA in Australia, and unlike GPRS, CDMA has no worldwide future apart from a local niche market. Australia should take advantage of GPRS as the only current globally accepted protocol.”

Of course, there’s going to be a lot of work required by installers if GPRS does become the standard of choice for monitoring solutions.

“The changes to wired IP and Wireless technologies will naturally take place as new technologies and services evolve, and it will probably be financially healthy for the security industry to experience these changes,” White says.

“However, with the changes in Securitel and now the introduction of a NSW Police $200 fine for non-genuine alarms, it appears prudent that consumers be educated about the security industry issues and police alarm response policies, rather than just ‘upgrading’ alarms from diallers,” he explains.

“This is where a responsible security industry should focus much of its work. Dialler replacement to multi-redundancy wireless and IP solutions is an attractive means for security companies to make more recurring income, but a more responsible outlay verse reward approach to customers is needed to honestly show the consumer the ‘real’ benefits of redundancy, especially if a response to an alarm cannot be provided,” White says.

“In my view, the verification of an actual intrusion is worthy of more attention than multi redundancy wireless and IP reporting upgrades for standard diallers.”

One of the issues with current PSTN networks is that given data is dominant, the nature of PSTN means data has to piggyback on a system that was not built to handle it. The result is that PSTN cannot handle data efficiently, especially big loads like video streams – and video has plenty of potential not just for remote monitoring but for alarm verification – an area that is important to Videofied, a company that manufactures video verification alarm solutions.

“IP definitely will open a gateway for live video streaming during alarm events for verification purposes,” White says. “This will be especially driven by the most recent pressures from Australian law enforcement for alarm verification solutions, namely visual or video verification prior to priority police response.

“Of course, a switch to all-IP networks is not completely necessary to accommodate remote video verification of alarm events, which is the primary role of a security monitoring station,” he explains.

“Videofied event-activated 10 second alarm video files are no larger than 200Kilabytes, and while it is no multi megapixel high resolution streaming video, it provides the control room operator with the video event to enable an intelligent and timely response.

“In fact 100’s of Videofied video alarms can actually be monitored using a 56K dial up speed modem at the control room end. It is all about intelligent use of technology to practically achieve the primary objectives.”

White says that in the case of alarm monitoring, the focus unfortunately is on numerous communication paths as opposed to reducing false alarms and getting the appropriate and timely response, which is likely going to be the police.

And White highlights a number of key challenges the monitoring and alarm installation business faces over the next ten years when it comes to the broad introduction of IP and wireless alarm reporting

“Issues installers face include configuring an IP network – routers to accommodate alarm/video systems to communicate to monitoring stations over wired IP networks will eventually be a large role of every security installer,” he says.

“This will be time consuming, challenging and fraught with frustration for some not so IT-savvy installers. Therefore, I believe most alarm system installer will opt for the wireless video verified integrated alarm products that communicate via GPRS/EDGE/UTMS to IP as a faster and more flexible solution.

Meanwhile over at SNP, managing director Tom Roche agrees that duplicating infrastructure with a switched network and a parallel IP network is a waste of money. According to Roche, it makes sense if a customer can bring down their overall communication costs by bundling services.

When it comes to replacing PSTN, Roche says SNP is already using multiple IP platforms including Emizon, IR Multipat, Permaconn and Telstra Secure and he believes the industry needs to proactively look at monitoring options.

“The industry peak body, ASIAL, has had discussions with NBN regarding issues of network performance and compliance to Australian Standards,” says Roche.

“Manufacturers of transmission platforms and security control panels certainly need to be involved in any discussions.”

In terms of actually making a changeover from dialler, Roche says there would need to be a site visit.

“Every client premises would require a technician to attend and perform the cutover to upgrade the system,” he explains. “The customer would incur costs for the new transmission equipment and as a result there may be monitoring price increases.”

According to Roche, about 96 per cent of the SNP monitoring business is dialler with just 4 per cent being IP-based. Given the progressive and inventive nature of the SNP business, including its historical willingness to explore new monitoring technologies, these figures suggest affordable and reliable dialler is proving resilient in the local market.

Meanwhile, Suretek’s Luke Kavanagh explains that the National Broadband Network will converge multiple technologies and deliver many services on a single connection.

“Important to bear in mind is that the US is completely different to Australia with regards to population density,” explains Kavanagh. “Australia is quite rare in that we have a large geographical reach for the population.

“This is why I believe Telstra have and continue to invest in wireless technology. Delivering fibre to the home in Australia will come at an astronomical expense to the tax payer. If you look at the price per capita compared to the US, the cost would be enormous.”

From Kavanagh’s point of view, it’s logical that more and more homes and businesses will move to more cost effective methods for all communications. That means IP in a combination of fibre, hardwired and wireless.