[VoiceOps] ADT Alarms Special Dialing?

[Nathan Anderson]

In addition to the other responses, I should point out that it would seem you are making an assumption here, and one that I would wager is an incorrect one.  Nowhere did Mr. Conor say he was delivering voice to the end-user via IP.  Nowhere.  In fact, I would take his language ("...we provided an analog POTS line...") to mean that as a CLEC, at least in these specific cases that he is talking about, he is ordering copper UNE-L from the ILEC and pumping dial-tone down it with his own switch.  (I don't want to speak for him, though, and would welcome his correction.)

The only reason VoIP came up prior to this in the conversation was in order to give examples of things that others (including myself) have learned by experience can screw with a phone-based alarm panel's ability to communicate with the head-end.  If ADT is not purposefully filtering out calls by doing real-time LRN lookups as calls come in (which I am sure they are NOT doing), then there must be something else in the path interfering with that communication.  I offered my experience with DTMF problems over VoIP because I figured that it was possible that even if the last mile was not VoIP, somewhere between the switch that services his customer(s) and ADT's head-end MIGHT be IP-based transport, and perhaps the DTMF is getting massaged or mangled there.

--
Nathan Anderson
First Step Internet, LLC
nathana at fsr.com

-----Original Message-----
From: VoiceOps [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of David Thompson
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2015 11:42 AM
To: Colton Conor; voiceops at voiceops.org
Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] ADT Alarms Special Dialing?

Alarm systems being serviced over VoIP are generally speaking a very bad idea. What are you supposed to do when and if the power fails? A UPS is only going to last for so long hours maybe. An analog CO line gets power from the wire and won’t go offline in the event of a natural or manmade disaster. The CO usually has a generator and guaranteed fuel delivery. By bringing VoIP into the mix your opening yourself up a huge liability if the alarm system fails due to your failure and someone gets burglarized, robbed, and worse injured or killed you’ll most likely be on the hook. Do yourself a favor and stay away from supporting it.
 
David Thompson 
Network Services Support Technician 
(O) 858.357.8794 
(F) 858-225-1882 
(E) dthompson at esi-estech.com
(W) www.esi-estech.com

-----Original Message-----
From: VoiceOps [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Colton Conor
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2015 6:21 PM
To: voiceops at voiceops.org
Subject: [VoiceOps] ADT Alarms Special Dialing?
 
We are a CLEC and have a had a couple of customers port away from Verizon's landline service and to our voice service where we provided an analog POTS line with the same number just as the client had before with Verizon. We hook the POTS line up to the exact same wire going to the client's alarm panel, but the alarm can't communicate with ADT.
 
We called ADT on multiple clients behalfs, and they basically said Verizon is on an approved list to work with their services and our CLEC is not, so it would not work.
 
How is ADT limiting this? Does their alarm panels dial a special number that only Verizon knows or allows? This has happened with multiple clients.
 
We have not been able to get on the voice switch and see what numbers they panel is actually trying to dial, but any insight to this would be helpful.
 
I have read that some alarm companies uses a special code before they make an outbound call so the long distance gets billed to them or something?