In 2017 COPS Monitoring integrated its Maryland central station onto its network. With the addition of the Maryland location, COPS reported, it operates the largest network of hot-redundant and load-sharing wholesale monitoring centers in the industry.

“Some may believe that six central stations is overkill,” said Jim McMullen, president and COO of COPS Monitoring. “We don’t think so. Even a short period of downtime in our industry can be catastrophic, which is why we focus on ‘failsafe’ monitoring above ‘disaster recovery.’ While the safeguards that are required by our industry’s governing agencies create a good minimum standard for single-site central stations to follow, we felt that they do not fully address the total loss of a facility.”

McMullen said that because no central station can properly support 100 percent of its customer base and provide acceptable response times with just 50 percent of its staff, COPS has continued to open central stations in Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Maryland — for a total of six. “All sites are staffed 24/7 (hot redundant) and alarms are delivered to the first available dispatcher across all locations (load sharing),” he said.

McMullen also explained that having six locations allows COPS to find the best talent across different geographical areas.