Central Stations Monitoring Fire Over IP

Building owners have begun to request IP fire alarm monitoring to eliminate the significant cost of phone lines dedicated to fire alarm communications with a central station. Given the IPDACT’s simple installation and UL Listed assembly with any brand of compatible fire alarm panel, dealers view this technology as a way to reinvigorate many retrofit applications requiring updating to meet new standards.

Building occupants and emergency responders benefit from faster alarm transmissions via IP, along with the IPDACT’s supervised line feature that verifies line connectivity every 90 seconds. Most fire alarms merely conform to current industry standards by supervising lines only once every 24 hours.

A growing number of central station owners are now considering IP as the future of fire alarm monitoring, according to USA Central President, Bart Didden, “We saw the IPDACT transmitter module as a forward-thinking technology that would solve a great number of ills typically seen with VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). Fire-Lite also has a great number of placements in the field and we thought it imperative that we support our dealers that use this equipment.”

The IPDACT transmits fire alarm system information over any IP network line (i.e. ADSL, cable, Internet) and it’s programmable using either static or dynamic IP for automatic address configuration.

On the central station side, a compatible VisorALARM-Plus IP receiver emulates popular receiver formats, allowing seamless integration into existing conventional central station architectures. The VisorALARM-Plus receiver also supports up to three destination IP receiver addresses – a feature not available from any other product. Multiple IP addresses allow for additional equipment redundancies, giving central stations a multitude of configuration options. Possible configurations include using secondary IP receivers for backup or even clusters of two or more receivers for off-site disaster recovery purposes. The third IP receiver address can also serve as a maintenance receiver in an end user’s facility to immediately inform maintenance personnel of any system troubles that need attending.