Breaking RMR Barriers: Partnership with Telguard Amplifies Prime City Developers' Revenue and Reliability

Darrell McKinney began his training and career in the electrical field in 1984 but the scope of his work soon expanded beyond residential and commercial electrical installations and repairs. In 2003, McKinney and his wife formed Prime City Developers and Prime City Security Systems, serving Philadelphia, PA, and surrounding areas as an electrical and general contractor.

 

Around 2010, his company started to receive large requests for repairs and new installations for low-voltage and communication systems. “It sort of went from just cable and phone lines to more detailed equipment like fire alarms and burglar alarms and camera systems,” McKinney says.

 

The current client breakdown of his company is 75% commercial and 25% residential with a total of eight employees to do the work but he quickly points out, “We’re a small company that actually provides big services.”

McKinney explains that switching from POTS to cellular in his work was gradual because having two phone lines for a fire alarm system—one as primary and the other as backup to ensure the signal goes through—was how it was always done, ever since he started in the field.

 

Describing challenges that other dealers have also experienced with the end of POTS, McKinney says that he grabs every opportunity to highlight the benefits of cellular to his customers. “One of the situations we ran into, especially in the Philadelphia area—and I’m not sure if it’s in other areas—but the phone companies no longer want to service those old phone lines and they certainly will not install new ones. Our thing is: if those lines are down, you can leave them down. We got something that will take care of all of that.”

 

In his experience, he notes that it’s very rare for a cellular signal to go down, “One of the more important things is that it’s more reliable. There’s no real wire to get corroded. There’s no tree to knock down anything. There’s no squirrel chewing on anything. It’s 100% more reliable.”

 

He also emphasizes to his customers that shifting to cellular will reduce their operating costs and extra expenses because they won’t have to pay the phone company for the phone lines on top of everything else. “Not only will we set everything up, if there’s any issue with the system then the customer knows that we’ll respond to take care of it.” But the bottom line is that McKinney can increase his RMR because what the customer would pay the telephone company will now go to Prime City Developers.

“Every situation out there: if it has a dialer or if it doesn’t have a dialer; if it’s damaged; if it’s a weak signal; if it’s an outdated unit. Anything that I’ve run into during the 40 years that I’ve been doing this, these Telguard products are going to solve that problem.”

- Darrell McKinney, Owner of Prime City Developers

Last October, Prime City Developers had a request to repair a newly installed fire alarm system and provide central station monitoring for it. However, it was quickly determined that the 5-zone control panel was too small to handle the needs of the building.

 

So how did McKinney make the newly installed system function properly, so it didn’t need to be replaced? In his shop on the shelf was the Telguard TG-7FS 5G LTE-M Commercial Fire Alarm Communicator that had been purchased two months earlier. “One of the first things I noticed when I picked up the Telguard box was that it was 5G LTE M compliant which some of the older communicators were only 3G technology,” he says. Bearing in mind how he kept getting calls about 3G systems being offline due to the 3G network sunset, McKinney continues, 

 

“These Telguard communicators are futuristic and they’ve come out at a time where 5G is coming right online.”

McKinney confirms that after he installed the Telguard communicator, “We began to realize that this would most certainly be our go-to communicator. I can keep one on my truck for every situation.”

 

However, the challenge of needing remote supervision for a system without a dialer remained. McKinney explains, “That’s when Adam Emmett from Telguard told me about the TG- PEM (Power & Expansion Module) and that completely changed everything.” The zone expander functionality extends the TG-7’s intrusion system with 8 highly configurable dry contact zones. For fire systems like the TG-7FS, the TG-PEM allows the panel to communicate the three basic zones (fire alarm, trouble, and supervisory) without a dialer. “This PEM unit is more valuable than gold,” he adds.

"Now I don’t have to keep two or three different communicators. It’s just that simple."

- Darrell McKinney, Owner of Prime City Developers

For Prime City Developers, the benefits of partnering with Telguard can be summarized as:

 

• Greater reliability: Using reliable 5G LTE-M cellular networks, the TG-7FS transmits alarm signals from the fire panel to the designated monitoring station. The TG-PEM is designed to help dealers get the most out of the Telguard LTE alarm communicator and breathe life into old fire panels. Connecting panel output relays to the TG-PEM will easily enable central station reporting,

 

• Increased RMR: On average, cellular monitoring costs the end-user significantly less than dedicated landlines but using the TG-7FS to replace landlines with cellular will also mean that customers will be paying dealers instead of the local telephone company each month.

 

• Easier installation: The dealer is in control when setting up and installing the TG-7FS, a true drop-in replacement while the dial capture allows for easy plug-and-play. The hardware needed to install the TG-PEM inside the metal enclosure of either the TG-7 or TG-7FS is included and all that’s needed is a screwdriver.

 

• Better support: All Telguard products are backed by award-winning, U.S.-based tech support.

 

• More flexibility: The dealer can apply desired settings when they’re in the office or on the road using the Telguard online dealer portal. And signals can easily be reported to the dealer’s central station of choice.