Canada Increases Fee for Alarm Monitoring Line
SARNIA, Ontario, Canada — Despite the protests of alarm monitoring system operators and the Canadian Security Association (CANASA), the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved Bell Canada’s request for a 10-percent rate increase for its digital voice access control service (DVACS) in Ontario and Quebec, which is used by many central stations in those provinces. Canadian alarm industry officials say the increase will mean a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the alarm industry and its customers.
DVACS, which has no connection to access control security, is an end-to-end, multipoint data connection designed by Bell Canada that forms a dedicated direct line between alarm customers and monitoring stations. The connection —150 baud using an F1/F2 subset — is known in the United States as Dataphone Select-a-Phone (DSAP).
Dave Currie, president of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada’s Damar Security Systems, says the rate increase may spur some of his customers away from DVACS. “I don’t anticipate losing customers for the rate increase, what we do anticipate is migrating customers to another form of communication,” says Currie, the telecommunications chairman for CANASA.
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