Anyone work for Eircom Phonewatch?

fishdog

I asked this question of the guy selling Eircom Phonewatch systems and was told that a line break would activate the same sequence of events as an alarm event, i.e. homeowner, keyholders, etc would be contacted

This would be against current regulations. Imagine the consequences if a cable containing hundreads of phone lines were cut by accident!

1- You can secure the white plastic box outside by fixing a metal cage or plate over it

This would look terrible, and would draw attention to it. How would you secure it so that an intruder could not remove it but Eircom can for to carry out repairs/tests??

2 - depending on where your phone point is in the house the phone line can be placed in metal conduit to protect it. If it's in the hallway directly behind the outside box then this option will work

Do you mean metal conduit in the house??? This would look terrible!!
Do you mean outside the house?? This will not solve the problem of the phone line being vunerable in the ETU box. (Plastic box on side of house).

The sensible alternitive is to install a GSM module as standard.

fishdog

In my opinion the getting your home monitored by a monitoring station has no significant advantages anyway. To me it seems that people sign up to a monitoring contract and are under the impression that this will guarantee a quick Garda response. It will not!! In essence all you are doing is paying a “middleman” to make a phone call or two. In this day and age

I have yet to be told of one significant advantage to having your home connected to a monitoring station compared to having the alarm ring and/or text several people in the event of alarm activation. This type of system is I would refer to as “self monitoring” and will save you the expense of paying a yearly monitoring fee.

Just like Max I was told that in the event of the phone line being cut the alarm would somehow contact the monitoring station!

To illustrate my point, the authorities are currently engaged in ongoing discussions with the “Firearms Consultative Panel”. They have decided that although civilians that are licensed to have restricted firearms (the ones Gardai would be most concerned about) will soon be required by law to install intruder alarms, these alarms will not have to be connected to a monitoring station!!

Quote from recent release for shooting associations:
LEVEL 3: Where five non-restricted firearms or more or even one restricted firearm is kept, the minimum requirement should be the same as for level 2 but in addition, the premises should have an alarm fitted (non monitored)……..

Furthermore, the Gardai themselves have recently decided that they will respond to domestic intruder alarm systems that are not connected to monitoring stations.

MAK

fishdog wrote: »

This would be against current regulations. Imagine the consequences if a cable containing hundreads of phone lines were cut by accident!

I can see this now - particularly since Eircom Phonewatch and Eircom are separate entities. If they worked together, you could envisage some diagnostic indicating a large cable break rather than a mass of break-ins.

fishdog wrote: »

This would look terrible, and would draw attention to it. How would you secure it so that an intruder could not remove it but Eircom can for to carry out repairs/tests??
<snip>
This will not solve the problem of the phone line being vunerable in the ETU box. (Plastic box on side of house).

This was the way I looked at it. Spending over EUR1300 on a 'sophisticated' system that can be hacked by accessing an unprotected box outside (I don't rate a metal cover as adequate protection). Any serious intruder/burglar would surely know the story.

fishdog wrote: »

The sensible alternitive is to install a GSM module as standard.

My point exactly when I called Phonewatch customer support. They refused unless I paid extra; I refused to be conned this way. So they're coming to uninstall next week with a full refund.

I suppose they could put an alarm sensor on the outside box, but this still leaves the problem of independent maintenance accesssability.

northdublin

the communication between phonewatch and the customer prior to installation is a joke. the sales ppl have little idea on how the system is installed and the fact they use other companys to sell there systems means these 'sales people' have little or no idea about what happens the day the engineer sets foot onto your premises. there is absolutley no way an alarm system can transmit its telemetry after the line is cut and to say it can is rediculous. also on those systems there is a 15-20 second dialer delay prior to the signal being sent on activation.......this is to reduce the ammount of false activations they get. this dialer delay is not present on the panic buttons they go trough instantly.
as far as the gsm unit goes did they mention that it has to be installed away from the main panel and it requires the phone line, a tamper circut and its own mains, so straight away thats more cabling then is goin to the main panel.
as regards the outside jb they can supply you with an aluminium plate which the fix with screw lock screws and they provide you with a screwlock driver, but anyone in any sort of electrical trade has one......usually red one (8-10) and at bes would only slow them down.