Security Sales & Integration August 2023 - 12

MARKETS
▶ The landscape of today's professional
monitoring industry is quite diverse, with
large full-service company providers,
third-party contract providers and proprietary
centers delivering a full range of
services to commercial, government, and
residential customers.
The challenges and opportunities for
each sector vary to a degree, but there are
some common, overarching factors influencing
key business decisions and impacting
short- and long-term success for
all monitoring companies. Following are
five areas to monitor:
1. Tech Opportunities, Challenges
With the introduction of new security
technologies, particularly in the areas of
video and AI, monitoring centers can expand
their service offerings and, in turn,
increase their ROI.
These new technologies are introducing
powerful and often complex new
features and functionalities to monitoring
centers. Higher-level services such as
access management and daytime video
patrols among others open new revenue-generating
options. New products
and technologies, though, can be costly
to purchase and implement. Staying current
with technology is difficult.
In tandem with introducing new produces
and services is often the need to
hire and train new employees to operate
the new systems. A tight labor pool,
especially finding IT staff to maintain
network infrastructure, is a challenge for
many monitoring centers. Rising operator
costs are making it difficult to offer
customers the reduced monitoring costs
that are being sought.
2. Public Safety
Partnership Pluses
TMA's Automated Secure Alarm Protocol
(ASAP) service is designed to increase the
efficiency and reliability of emergency electronic
signals from monitoring companies
to public safety answering points (PSAPs),
12
VERTICALS
MONITORING DISTRIBUTION
5 Key Monitoring Impacts by Celia Besore
which are now referred to as emergency
communications centers (ECCs).
With ASAP, critical life-safety signals
and accurate information are processed
in seconds, not minutes, through the
Nlets system of state-to-state PSAP/
ECC communications.
Today, 130 ECCs across the U.S., protecting
more than 48 million people, live
in areas covered by the ASAP service.
The challenges and
opportunities for each
sector vary to a degree,
but there are some
common, overarching
factors influencing key
business decisions and
impacting short- and
long-term success for all
monitoring companies.
3. TDM Sunset Looms Large
TDM phone lines and services started to
sunset many years ago. However, the technology's
end is now coming quickly. On
Aug. 2, 2022, an FCC order released local
phone companies from the obligation to
provide subscriber copper loops to their
competitors, which has caused the canceling
and increased pricing of POTs lines.
At the end of last year, Verizon announced
that they would cancel all its TDM business
services by the end of 2023.
On May 5, 2023, AT&T filed papers
before the FCC advising they will discontinue
AT&T toll-free MEGACOM
Service, as well as Access Channel Services
and Inter-Office Channel Services.
All of AT&T's TDM services will be retired
by October 2026.
Installers will need to do their due
diligence and communicate with their
end customers to make sure that the
Security Sales & Integration AUGUST 2023
services that they are changing also support
alarm signalling.
4. 'Right to Repair'
Raises Concerns
TMA's Alarm Industry Communications
Committee (AICC), in partnership with
ESA and SIA, has continued to raise concerns
about " Right to Repair " legislation
that could compromise alarm systems.
The AICC has also opened a dialog with
the relevant members of Congress and the
Senate to urge protection of alarm systems
in the Federal Fair Repair Act, which is expected
to be reintroduced this year.
5. Standards Streamline
Alarm Communications
& Active Threat Response
In December 2022, TMA received ANSI
accreditation for its Alarm Validation
Scoring Standard (TMA-AVS-01), which
provides a standardized method for calculating
an alarm score, or classification level,
that results in a repeatable metric that
estimates the validity or potential threat
level of a burglar alarm activation using
historical and real-time data.
TMA is in the process of developing
targeted online training for monitoring
center personnel, law enforcement, and
ECC/PSAP staff. Additionally, discussions
with monitoring center software
and automation providers have been initiated
to provide them with information
related to the standard's validation and
scoring classification.
In the spring of 2023, TMA initiated
work on a new proposed ANSI standard -
Monitoring Center Notification of Active
Threat Detection (TMA-ATN-01). Monitoring
centers are increasingly monitoring
shot detection, weapons detection, manual
lockdown notification, as well as other
threat technologies. These events require
immediate notification to public safety.
Celia T.Besore is Executive Director of
The Monitoring Association (TMA).
securitysales.com
http://www.securitysales.com
Security Sales & Integration August 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Security Sales & Integration August 2023
