Customers often have a large investment in existing Alarm equipment which often does not have an IP Stack or Ethernet port for wide area network access connectivity. To resolve this access issue, customers can either install a device server or totally upgrade this older equipment with the latest ”Native” IP Alarm system.

Customers select from a number of device server products depending on the current connectivity method in use. Popular interfaces are POTS, Serial RS232/485 and relay contacts, however other data transfer methods are supported.

If a customer is in doubt about the type of device server required to complete a system interface to IP, they should consult with their contractor or ISP for the best solution on offer.

Contractors generally recommend the customers upgrade their equipment to IP and device servers give the contractor an option to simply connect older equipment without replacing the entire system.

The types of device servers are wide and varied, however Alarm contractors generally use DTMF ContactID POTS to CSV Contact IP Ethernet devices as they can be easily interfaced into existing Alarm monitoring station software and are based on open standard non proprietary protocols.

Contractors should consider products like the PowerBrick which include both the UPS function and the Alarm server to convert older legacy equipment to Ethernet.

ISP’s have many customers who want their broadband service however have legacy Alarm equipment that requires a POTS line to operate correctly.

Using a device server to convert the Alarm POTS output directly to Ethernet IP is much better because when using analogue alarms with VoIP, there is a high risk of signal failure. Some Alarm companies believe that signal loss can be eliminated by selecting the correct Audio  transmission codec in their router, often ignoring basic connectivity issues. Simply using a higher bandwidth codec is normally not the answer. There are a large number of issues at play including, latency,  jitter and packet loss,  and while the lower bandwidth codecs handle these far better, they do not handle in band DTMF used by Alarm panels very well.

ISP’s prefer that the customer fit an alarm device server and not use the VoIP port for Alarm monitoring.