Warning: If you have Vonage (or similar) and an alarm

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Mike Labbe

Mike Labbe

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TIP: USING VONAGE (or any VOIP) WITH YOUR ALARM PANEL

I figured I would pass this along, because others may be unaware.

One of my side businesses is a small alarm company. In any case, I was called out to a clients house yesterday to replace their battery and do a periodic check of the system. I tested the system and found that it wasnt able to call the central office.

After further discussion, they told me that they switched to Vonage about a year ago. This presents a serious problem for alarm panels because they are typically wired between the phone company and the house wiring, and disconnect all of the phones in the house (with a relay) when the alarm needs the phone. Vonage typically has you disconnect the wiring from the phone company, and plug their device into a house jack - effectively feeding the dial tone from the opposite direction. (on the wrong side of the relay). The outcome was that the alarm would diconnect all the house phones (including vinage) before trying to dial out on the old wires that used to go to the phone company. Fixing it was a simple matter of rewiring it to go through the alarm panel first, but this could be a serious and common problem. I can see this easily happening to ANYONE who installs Vonage with an alarm system.

This is a reminder to do an alarm test with your monitoring company, if you have recently installed a VOIP service in your home or office. Follow up to make sure the alarm company is getting the test signal, and that you are not having the same problem mentioned above. Most folks won't even realize it until the alarm is set off, and starts flashing with a "comm failure" (the police will also not be notified and will not respond)

Mike

PS: DSL is another tricky thing if you have an alarm. If you have both, you have to make sure the signal going into the alarm panel has a filter on it. If not, the alarm will likely have difficulty calling out because of the static on the line.
 
I finally got ADT to work with Vonage...

Before I made the full switch to VOIP I read all the forums and was fully aware about the troubles I might have with ADT. I ran cat5 directly to my alarm panel from my Vonange router... which should have done the trick. I immediately had a dial tone to the rest of the house. But ADT still could't connect.

I read on one of the Vonage forums that you can call Vonage and have them tweak your line settings, and I did and they shrank the size of my data packets. The ADT box can now finally phone home.

I'm surprised that your clients Mike went a year without ADT monitoring. ADT has called me once a month wondering why they're not getting a signal since I switched to VOIP.
 
Most alarms only call the central office when there's an actual alarm, so many folks wont realize the problem until it's too late. For extra fees, systems can be set up to make automated monthly test calls or even call in any time someone arms or disarms. We are using Emergency24, a large monitoring outfit in Chicago.

His problem was the tip and ring wires IN and OUT had to be reversed, since it was backfeeding the dial tone in from the house wiring and not from the outside line that originally went in. When the relay kicks in, it normally disconnects that side of the line. The panel was trying to dial out on the dead pair of wires leading to the network interface/pole.

Old phone company feed===== IN(Alarm Panel)OUT======house phones (switched off when dialing)

Vonage plugs in on the right side of the above diagram, causing the problem. When the panel is in use, it has a relay that disconnects the OUT side. This is to prevent any house phones from picking up while it is doing tis thing. If the vonage signal source is on that side, it also shuts off the dial tone, as below:
Dead original wires=====IN(Alarm Panel)OUT=====house phones and vonage(switched OFF when dialing)


The correct wiring is:

Vonage feed===== IN(Alarm Panel)OUT=====house phones(switched off when dialing)

Vonage itself worked flawlessly otherwise. Very loud and clear signal.

Mystery solved :)
Mike
 
Yeah I tried swapping the wires to see if I had tip and ring reversed and that didn't make any difference..

I'm surprised that their panel doesn't do a monthly test though..
 
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