First, allow me to say I am honored to be chair of the Alarm Industry Communications Committee (AICC). We typically meet four times a year in Washington, D.C. For years I have resisted having AICC go online, even in a hybrid form.

Last summer, we were already a few months into a pandemic-induced lockdown. Businesses everywhere were closing their doors, employees were working from home, and, luckily, most security professionals were considered to be ‘essential.’

False alarms have long troubled video monitoring stations. With stations in Lafayette and Baton Rouge, La. and Chicago, Ill., Acadian Monitoring Services did better than most in the industry, estimating only two of three alarms received were false.

Jacqueline Brogan, central station manager at Alarm Detection Systems in Aurora, Ill., is The Monitoring Association’s 2020 Central Station Manager of the Year for her work in leading a team of more than 20 operators. She first joined the team in 2012 as an operator, then became a customer service representative in 2015. She returned to the central station in 2019 to take on her current position.

Central station redundancy and its significance is essential to understand. A select group have maintained redundancy over the years, although UL hasn’t mandated redundancy until recently.

Traditional security and the smart home are the same. There — I’ve said it. Our industry likes to see them as different, but for someone growing up now, without any preconceptions of alarm systems, they all just look like a lot of gadgets for the home.  So what does this mean for the smart home and traditional alarm monitoring?

When I first entered the security industry in 1973, alarm communications were performed by Direct Wire, McCulloh and some high security applications using voice-grade telephone lines configured in “open window” and later “closed window” bridges.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents numerous unprecedented challenges to the monitoring industry and those with a stake in the protection services it provides. Not the least of these is operating in a regulated environment, under standards that did not fully anticipate the impact of public health mitigations.

At last, 2021 is here — I can’t be the only one happy to leave 2020 in the dust! The year brought so many changes to the business of monitoring, our heads haven’t stopped spinning. With the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unemployment numbers that unfortunately came along with it, providing peace of mind has never been more important.

Communication — both with end users and emergency personnel — has always been an essential part of any monitoring business. The methods through which monitoring centers communicate, though, have become incredibly varied.