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New DSC technology raises bar for industry

In the same way that cellular telephones, pagers and handheld PDAs (personal digital assistants) have revolutionised inter-personal communications, so the DSC T-Link family of Internet and network alarm communicators is set to raise the bar on alarm signal delivery.

According to Sascha Kaylau, product manager of DSC, this cutting-edge technology comes on the back of his company's successful T-Link product installation in a multibranch banking system in Tennesee, USA. The multibranch configuration, he says, allowed DSC to use the bank's existing computer network to communicate with a proprietary alarm monitoring station. This in turn allowed for notification of breaches at any of the bank's numerous branches or bank machines to be instantly relayed to the station. The central monitoring station then immediately triggered the appropriate response to police, fire or emergency officials, thereby eliminating the need for hundreds of telephone lines and the related cost.

Combining the 'nets

The trial was the precursor to a new technology upgrade by DSC that moved away from being purely internal network- or intranet-based to being able to send alarm communications via the Internet. As a result, today's T-Link products can combine both Internet and intranet, not only for the transmission of alarm communications but also to provide business management information such as arrivals and departures of staff and visitors and additions or removals of computer operators.

"This is of particular interest to government departments, retail chains, school boards and financial institutions of every description that require greater proprietary control over security operations," says Kaylau.

Other benefits of this technology include savings on phone lines and long-distance calls, he continues. In addition, DSC's most recently launched product, the TL300, offers communication features that allow installers to adapt any control panel on the market with contact ID for Internet alarm communication.

Says Michael Brett, new business manager of Elvey Security Technologies: "Contrary to popular belief, many security systems are vulnerable to undetected failure. Some have no built-in alerts to advise if the communication line fails accidentally or is cut by burglars. Other systems are able to recognise a line failure but may not detect it for up to one hour after the fact. In both examples, this amounts to having no protection at all."

Accordingly, Brett is upbeat about the award-winning TL300, which he says provides exceptional levels of communication line supervision. "The TL300 sends signals at 90-second intervals to check connection integrity. If compromised, the system will immediately launch into alert mode.

"It is no secret that analog telephone lines are slower than the Internet," he continues. "In emergencies such as fire, burglary and personal injury, every passing second can become important, hence our support of the TL300 which provides high speed, two-way alarm communication."

Another immense advantage of this technology, says Zane Greeff, technical director of Elvey, is that data transmissions created by T-Link alarm communicators are small and therefore require a limited amount of network bandwidth. "This ensures timely and accurate delivery of the alarm signal, and even in the event that the primary receiver IP address is rendered inaccessible, the modules are capable of reporting to two different e-mail addresses. These e-mail addresses can be associated with a personal computer, pager, enabled mobile phone or handheld PDA."

Greeff notes that because the encryption standard used in the DSC systems is AES 128 - "accepted worldwide as the most secure means of protecting data travelling via the Internet" - sensitive data is safe from being hijacked during transmission. "There are no recorded cases of data being stolen and misused when it is encrypted according to this standard," he states.

"Because we are always thinking about tomorrow," says Kaylau, "we have focused on providing technology that can be seamlessly integrated with other components. A case in point is Sur-Gard, the leading global monitoring station solution. With the latest generations of the legendary DSC PowerSeries and MAXSYS security control panels, customers can now enjoy ultimate peace of mind knowing that they are being protected by the industry's leading Internet security alarm products."

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