Reliability of Alarm Notifications using SMS gateways (dial-up Tap to SMS)

Hello

This topic thread is to do with the (un)reliability of using alarm communicators that use your a normal landlines to notify homeowners of alarm events via SMS messaging.

This topic evolved from this original thread which was initially posted regarding how to connect he communicator to the panel and then evolved into troubleshooting SMS reliability issues.
Some fantastic help and contribution from key users: @secureiam @sparkymarka @Paulj48

Given the subject has moved from installation to reliability I decided to separate the two topics.

Back story:

I recently purchased and installed the Texecom prem elite 48 panel which came as a bundle with a standard Texe keypad and Com2400 communicator.

Considering all factors: property type, lifestyle, proximity to many good neighbors, and budget... our risk profile is low so exploring the use of this communicator in the bundle is ok with us.

I liked the idea of the Com2400 because not only would I get a notification via mobile of alarms, it would give you more details such as which zone(s) have triggered and I also like the idea of setting up arm/disarm notifications while I am on holiday and left the keys with a neighbors.

I installed the alarm system and it all works really well except the SMS notifications.

Thanks to the support on this forum we checked a wide range of things (from settings to phone logs with my telco provider) as well as getting a telecom mate to check my phone network.

Everything on my side of the equation is working but something along the chain beyond my house is not.

The primary SMS centre programmed into the digi is the normal Vodafone number ending 993.

Initial tests showed the following stats:
The alarm was set to notify me of arm/disarm, alarm, and priority alarm events.
28 of these occurred over the test period.
7 failed to reach either of our mobile phones.

I am now running new set of tests where the primary sms centre is still Voda and secondary centre is a service called OpenTAP (which uses a 070 personal number which costs more).

It is too soon to provide an answer on this test but so far it has shown interesting results in that the 6 events so far: one event stood out when voda "partially" failed to notify us, so the digi reverted to OpenTAP and that worked. When I say partially, I did get the voda SMS but my wife did not, but the system moved onto the back up service and I ended up getting two SMS in total and my wife one sms. I thought that was clever as I didn't think the TAP SMS protocols were designed to handle partial acknowledgements. (clearly I'm no expert)
I will report back once we have done the test against more events.

My aim is not to prove SMS as a 100% system, it simply isn't! But I hope we can prove what level of reliability can be achieved and hope the results will prove useful to others.

If anyone else has any test results and stats they can share then please post here.

Thank you

look forward to this data, you may want to consider posting this on Texecoms forum as I am sure some will find it useful on there also.

It's not handling partial SMS. Each event triggers a separate call. You will find that when you check your landlinr bill. This can become very expensive depending on how much info you get transmitted. Oh, and the failed calls will still be charged, as the charge applies as soon as the call is answered.

I think the problem with TAP from Voda was that when it went down previously, it went down for days. Since the panels would throw up faults for this, it really hacked the installers off. In saying that, since technology has moved on, less people will be using TAP, so it's less likely to be congested. That may also trigger Voda to eventually pull the service like O2 did a few years back. That's probably when OpenTap will hike their current 50p a call up much higher. This is exactly what happened last year in the Netherlands and TAP based users ended up being charged a flat rate of €10 a month to dial TAP.

For the price of IP based comm's these days, it's a no brainer to add to these higher end panels. You gain regular automatic testing of the connection and remote control.

Since you are low risk, then you can use the Texecom IP modules. They aren't very secure technology wise, as data passcodes are passed in plain text over the internet. But for low cost DIY they are much better/cheaper than anything TAP based SMS will give.

I'll post my experience with using the Com Wifi on a Premier Elite 24. The Com Wifi has now been fitted for 4 months (on to a 12 month old system)connected via wifi to my Virgin Media router with a good wifi signal.

I regularly get a 'Communication Restore' push messages (and email) from the Texecom server, this can happen as much as 3 times in 24 hours but then may be good for 10 days before it happens again, I have the ATS fault delay set to 10 minutes so the communication could be losing connected even more than reporting. You don't need to do anything and the fault clears itself. I know Secureiam has had similar results?

I have notifications set for everything and 99.9% of set/unset/omits etc. have been received via push and email usually within seconds (with maybe the odd delay of 5 to 10 seconds)

Out of the 4 months the Com Wifi has required a reset via the keypad twice to clear an ARC error message.

I have a 3rd party voice dialler so the above 'issues' are acceptable to me as in the event of a genuine alarm the voice dialler will alert me anyway and this is the most important part.

Paul,

I take it that the ARC error message is then the result of a >=10 minute outage of the path to one of Texecom's servers when your panel is trying to send an event to Texecom's servers. Is there a web interface that allows you to view the test and other events received at the Texecom side, or do you only get the regular events and communication restores at the app side? Do you get a communication down report at the app prior to the restore? If so, how long between each ?

GalaxyGuy said:

Paul,

I take it that the ARC error message is then the result of a >=10 minute outage of the path to one of Texecom's servers when your panel is trying to send an event to Texecom's servers. Is there a web interface that allows you to view the test and other events received at the Texecom side, or do you only get the regular events and communication restores at the app side? Do you get a communication down report at the app prior to the restore? If so, how long between each ?

Click to expand...

Hi Galaxyguy, yes the ARC errors are due to an outage of over 10 minutes to the Texecom servers, the internet in the house is fine (checked via logs as I have a Synology server on the network)

I can see the time lost and re-established in the event log via Wintex, I've never realised before but ALL ARC errors are exactly 14 minutes long, don't know what this could mean though?

the panel polls every 15 minutes to the server

secureiam said:

the panel polls every 15 minutes to the server

Click to expand...

so in normal operation which way is the data traveling, is the Texecom server sending the data to my panel (and in one of my ARC errors this data is missing) then my panel polls back to Texecom and the connection is established again?

notifications out of panel to server, that includes the poll.
the app connects to the panel to send commands, the panel responds to the command and sends a screen update. (well the app requests a screen update)

secureiam said:

notifications out of panel to server, that includes the poll.
the app connects to the panel to send commands, the panel responds to the command and sends a screen update. (well the app requests a screen update)

Click to expand...

I wonder why the panel looses connection to the Texecom server but a poll (from the same panel) re-establishes the connection?

But from the above, it seems you get a 're-established' message, but no indication of the original outage. This would mean that the original outage could have happened at any time between the previous event to the point that you're told about comm's being re-established.

I'm watching this with interest too.... tried a com2400 at my parents on their 24 and it didn't work so I used an old nokia mobile with a serial cable, on my 48 I have a comwifi and its 99% reliable, max 10 seconds for set/unset alerts, but I can't trust it yet for alarms so I've fitted an sd3 gsm aswell

SteNova said:

I'm watching this with interest too.... tried a com2400 at my parents on their 24 and it didn't work so I used an old nokia mobile with a serial cable, on my 48 I have a comwifi and its 99% reliable, max 10 seconds for set/unset alerts, but I can't trust it yet for alarms so I've fitted an sd3 gsm aswell

Click to expand...

do you get the 'communication restore' message and if so how often? also what do you have the ATS fault delay set at?

I am still doing tests on my test panel, I have no delays and full on reporting don't ant to compromise, and previous tests showed it didn't seem to help even with a 1 hour delay(60 minutes).

Paulj48 said:

SteNova said:

I'm watching this with interest too.... tried a com2400 at my parents on their 24 and it didn't work so I used an old nokia mobile with a serial cable, on my 48 I have a comwifi and its 99% reliable, max 10 seconds for set/unset alerts, but I can't trust it yet for alarms so I've fitted an sd3 gsm aswell

Click to expand...

do you get the 'communication restore' message and if so how often? also what do you have the ATS fault delay set at?

Click to expand...

I think its set at 60 after it gave ats faults a couple of times, ive since had a new phone cable and router so its sat 3 meters from the comwifi so I may lower it back to 15