Recently, the cable company entered the security industry to become another "cream skimmer" of lucrative monthly monitoring revenues. Their heavy and expensive TV advertising is emphasizing the availability of smart phone access to your alarm system plus other features such as home automation, IP cameras to view into the home, thermostat control of your heating system, and electronic control of your door locks. These services are available with their proprietary wireless equipment but at ridiculously high monthly pricing.
This heavy advertising is also having the effect of raising the general interest of the buying public, who are more and more becoming acclimatized to the availability of these smart home feature sets. What is not so evident in their advertising however, is the extremely high pricing for the same feature sets that are available through regular professional alarm dealers sometimes at one quarter of the monthly rate !!
Before you opt for your alarm from your cable company, there are a number of things to seriously think about:
 | If you purchase Rogers wireless equipment, be advised this equipment is proprietary to Rogers, and cannot be monitored by any other company. This is never a wise thing to do in the security industry since it limits your ability to move to another dealer should service quality turn out to be poor. |
| Further, you may wish to ensure that they have dedicated and properly trained personnel to install, service, and monitor your alarm, and who are different from the regular installation staff (who routinely mess up customers alarm systems during Rogers home phone installations). After 20 years in the business, I am still learning new things that benefit my customers !! |
| Ask about the programming of "automatic test signals" (minimum weekly, to ensure your panel continues to work to the station without your having to do a manual test) |
| Most important, be sure they program in "cancel codes" (to advise the station that you have turned the alarm off and all is clear). This is the single most important feature to prevent false dispatches which now cost $160 per event. |
| Ask about service on such things as replacement batteries, and instructions on how to change them (otherwise you may get an unpleasant surprise bill when their personnel are called out simply to change batteries) |
Before you decide, you should also know, modern DSC, Paradox and Ademco panels are now available which, coupled with certain IP communicators will provide the vast majority of features that your cable company advertises as doing, at no more than the regular price of your monitoring. It doesn't take long at the difference between $15 a month and Rogers charges as high as $60 a month, to pay for much better, conventional hard wired, alarm equipment. IP cameras are also available in the open market for less than $100 that have zero monthly costs associated with them.
Just another approach to think about before you let Rogers bundle your alarm system into your monthly communications costs!
Talk to your current dealer first to see what he has to offer!!