Security Monitoring

Once upon a time, alarm bells or sirens sounding prompted neighbours and passers by to take a look. Today this simply not the case. Any alarm which isn't effectively monitored is little more than an annoying noise-maker.

Calamity employs state of the art technology and is building a world-class central monitoring station from which we can arrange to remotely monitor and supervise all types of security systems, including Alarms and Camera systems.

We can already arrange to monitor a wide variety of other systems, and provide detailed reporting which can assist in protecting other business assets, such as stock and plant equipment.

Subject to certain pre-requisites, we can define a Service Level Agreement, where we guarantee levels of service, in most cases beyond anything you've experienced.

Our high-quality monitoring centre will rapidly respond to an alarm at residential or commercial premises by:

• verifying it is genuine - a properly designed security system should only alarm when there is a genuine crime in progress.

• following agreed procedures to contact and/or send police, patrol response, keyholders or other responders.

We can perform remote diagnostics and advise if there is a technical fault which might increase your risk.

In order to provide a Service Level Agreement (SLA), we expect that connected systems are properly designed, installed and operated in order to eliminate false alarms. This way, we can consistently achieve response times well ahead of other security providers and the police. Our system is a partnership aimed at your protection and full details are provided when you join.

This high level of service gives you peace of mind and can help you receive significant discounts from your insurer.

Monitoring Operations Staff will work around the clock in a highly secure, breathtaking facility and take immediate action whenever a system is activated, possible criminal activity is detected or help is required in an emergency

Most security companies have been doing the same thing for years, if not decades. Calamity is different. We have modern systems, methods and procedures for a 21st century approach to security, with our high levels of quality and customer service. Technical details are detailed further down the page.

CCTV and Remote Camera Monitoring

We highly recommend remote camera monitoring. When an alarm is activated at your premises, the cameras on site send real-time and recorded video of what happened prior to the alarm and immediately afterward, to our monitoring centre. We can immediately see if it was an unknown person entering your premises or in the case of panic buttons, if you are being held-up. Police generally will not respond in a hurry to alarm activations, if at all. However, if they know there is confirmation of a crime in progress, they will get there fast. We can use your existing CCTV systems or install new camera technology.

Remote Arming and Programming

Remember, your insurance may not cover you when your premises are unattended if the alarm isn't properly armed and activated. At your instruction, Calamity can remotely 'arm' your system if someone has forgotten to do so before leaving. No more annoying trips back, to avoid worrying about what might happen. That's real peace of mind and all part of our service.

If you need to add a new user code or immediately delete one when somebody has left, we can also do this for you remotely. This improves your security while keeping costs down by avoiding a service call.

Business Services

For Commercial and Government clients, we will offer a variety of reporting systems to assist in your management and meet OH&S plus insurance requirements. These include test reports, open/close reports indicating what time the premises were opened and closed each day as well as details of all incidents in a format you can understand. No cryptic reports such as "zone 7 deactivated by user 15". Calamity can tell you exactly what room it was or the person's name. Reports can be sent by secure email as well.

Plant Monitoring to Save Money

We can monitor cooling towers, air-conditioning, coolrooms, chillers, pumps and detectors of gas, fire, flood, smoke and temperature. If it can be measured, we can monitor it. See Alarm Design for more details of how our monitoring can save you serious money.

Our Technology and Methods

High-Security and High-Availability Alarm Transmission

If an alarm is only connected via 'dialler' to a phone line and the phone line is cut, or the criminal blocks the phone line by ringing it from their mobile phone, it is generally 'game over'. Criminals know this. The security industry continues to advocate this dated technology, mainly as security companies receive 'kickbacks' from telephone companies for the phone calls (seldom disclosed). Although we offer this service to be competitive, we generally do not recommend it.

Instead, we recommend multiple 'redundant' communications pathways, such that even if one or more are cut, jammed or interfered with, the signal will still get through via another means and help can be sent.

Although specific implementation varies depending on site and risk-profile, your security system can communicate via:

• PSTN - Public Switched Telephone Network. The traditional 'phone line' e.g. your Telstra home or office line.
• GSM - Similar to PSTN connections however the signal is sent via the Mobile Phone Network.
• GPRS - Data is sent over the Mobile Network. This allows for regular 'polling' to check the system is alive, without paying for phone calls.
• Ethernet/Internet - For clients with 'always on' Internet or who may also choose not to have a PSTN line at all.

GPRS and Internet based connections are 'polled'. That is, at a regular interval, as often as every 20 seconds, the system sends an authenticated 'heartbeat' to let the monitoring station know it is still 'alive' and everything is okay. As this generally happens over specialised data networks, it does not increase phone charges at all.

If the Internet is unavailable to send a heartbeat, the system will revert to GSM/GPRS and try again. If the mobile network is unavailable it will revert to PSTN and so forth.

The monitoring centre expects a heartbeat within the predetermined interval. If one isn't detected, we will know there is a communication failure. Our chosen communication systems have so many levels of 'redundancy' built-in, that even if all of the communications paths are cut - an extremely unlikely scenario - the failure in 'polling' means we will still know within a matter of seconds that something is very wrong, and can send immediate help.

The best news, is this high security product often costs the same as traditional, unreliable dialler monitoring. In many cases, it can even save you money, by letting you do away with phone lines and call costs altogether.

If you are interested in increasing security and saving money, talk to Calamity.

Monitoring Station

In 2011, Calamity will be opening its monitoring centre to the Australian market. This will be a game changer. Contact us for a private briefing.