Wireless Alarm Monitoring/Alarm Receiving
With so many security options on the market these days and regular changes to the Police Authority policy, it's not easy to decide what's best for your property.
The explaination that follows should help you make sense of it all and understand why using an Alarm Receiving Centre to monitor an alarm is so important.
'Bell Only'
Despite most installers using electronic sounders these days, 'Bell only' is the industry slang for a system that is NOT connected to a monitoring station (or, as they are known these days, Alarms Receiving Centres or ARCs). Obviously, if a 'bell only' burglar alarm is activated, an external sounder on your premises sounds for up to 20 minutes; however, these are often ignored as nothing more than a nuisance and increasingly the burglars remain and finish burgling the property. So if you do not have concerned neighbours, your neighbours are not home or it's the middle of the night, there's unlikely to be any reaction.
NB: No Police Response
In line with the latest Police Policy - the ACPO Policy on Police Response to Security Systems (April 2006) - sounders do NOT get a Police response unless a third party (i.e. a neighbour) confirms that they have witnessed the premises actually being burgled and not just that the alarm is sounding before the Police would attend.
Auto-Diallers
Auto-dialling systems (systems that call or send messages to mobile phones) fall into this bracket. If an auto-dialling system calls a home owner or a keyholder to notify them of an alarm activation, the home owner/keyholder is left powerless as a call to the Police will NOT result in Police attendance, even when audio or visual confirmation is received (if a system is able to send pictures or audio and the intruders can be either seen or heard by the keyholder).
Monitored Alarms
For increased security, your wireless burglar alarm system will be monitored. This means that your alarm will be linked to an Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) by telephone line (PSTN).
Alarm Receiving Centres are bound by strict legislation to ensures the highest standards of operation and are permanently manned 24/7 by staff who are committed to monitoring security alarms.
On receiving an activation signal from one of our alarms, Southern Monitoring Services will endeavour to contact the systems nominated keyholders immediately and if the system is on Police Response, will action the call to the local Police authority once a 'confirmation' signal has been received.
Police Response and Alarm Confirmation
ACPO (The Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland), who specify Police Force/Constabulary Service guidelines, introduced a new policy in 2000 on Police Response.
This policy has been reviewed and is now referred to as the ACPO Policy on Police Response to Security Systems (April 2006).
In these guidelines (the ACPO Policy), it states that the Police Force will only attend monitored intruder alarms that 'confirm' alarm activations, whereas previously, the Police would respond at the first activation without requiring confirmation.
Our alarms use 'Sequential Confirmation', to confirm alarm activations. 'Sequential Confirmation' is the most common form of confirmation and the most effective if a system has been professionally designed.
Sequential Confirmation occurs when 2 separate detection devices detect an intruder within 30 minutes of each other. For example, this may typically be the triggering of a magnetic reed contact when an external door is opened, followed by a passive infra-red movement sensor detecting movement inside the building, or it could be 2 sensors either in adjacent rooms.