Schools & Campuses

Our nation’s schools have learned in recent years how critically important it is to implement robust security measures. Too many instances of school shootings have hit the headlines in recent years, and upgraded video surveillance and access control solutions are helping to prevent these types of terrible tragedies. But when it comes to fire and intrusion alarm communication, many places of learning are still very much ‘old school.’

 

Many schools are still relying on traditional, legacy landline communicators that just don’t make the grade anymore. Most of the copper lines have not been serviced or maintained in decades which causes degradation. The lack of maintenance can lead to increased frayed connections and noise that can interfere with the signal integrity. Often the central stations receive distorted signals resulting in false alarms.

 

Most traditional alarm and fire systems were designed to work with analog phone lines, which transmit signals in a continuous, uninterrupted form. Phone companies have started introducing VoIP (Voice-over IP) and switching the technology without giving notice to their customers. This causes many communication issues as VoIP converts voice and data into digital packets for transmission over IP. This conversion process creates delays, jitter and packet losses, which interferes with the alarm panel’s ability to send reliable signals to the monitoring station. The alarm and fire systems also rely on phone line power for operation during power outages, while VoIP systems require constant internet connection and power making it less reliable in emergencies where power or internet service might be interrupted.

 

POTs are sunsetting and VoIP is unreliable, so the time to transition to cellular communication is now. Telguard’s simple and future-focused cellular alarm communicators are ideal life safety solutions for schools. And because our communicators are universal, schools that upgrade their systems to cellular usually don't have to worry about upgrading their whole security/fire systems. Overall, the combination of advanced network design, carrier redundancy, ongoing cellular improvements, and better signal management makes cellular communication a more reliable solution than traditional POTS. Furthermore, with dual path solutions from Telguard, customers can take advantage of existing infrastructure to add internet as a second path, adding more redundancy and reliability to an already robust cellular system. We take life-safety seriously, which is why we strive to provide the best solutions for your fire and intrusion communication needs. Telguard offers many industry-leading product solutions that are ideally suited to meet the specific security and life safety needs of our nation’s schools and campuses.