American Two-Way's Major acquisition

LOS ANGELES--American Two-Way announced the acquisition of Major Monitoring in January. Major, a third-party monitoring company based in North Hollywood, Calif., serviced 20,000 accounts. Terms of the deal were not released. Christopher Baskin, chief operating officer of American Two-Way, said, "We've been pursuing this acquisition for several years and we were very happy to see it come together in the first part of '07." American Two-Way, which serves the entire United States as well as Canada, will be merging Major's facility into its existing UL-listed central station, "and we are very excited to be bringing on a lot of good, talented employees to our facility," said Baskin. "Major has served the LA community very well for over 20 years. We believe this acquisition will mean we are the last remaining full-service central station still operating in Los Angeles." Baskin added that, through the years, other places have either been acquired or moved out of the city due to the expense of doing business in L.A. American Two-Way has also announced that it is releasing the ATW-IP Intervoice Module, a universal digital or two-way voice VoIP solution, in time for ISC West. The module enables any manufacturer's panel, new or old, to be monitored via the Internet. "Most importantly, if that alarm system or medical alert system is two-way voice enabled, it allows it to continue to do two-way voice through IP," said Baskin. The unit, which is about the size of a pack of cigarettes, is hooked up to the alarm panel or medical alert system and then plugged into the Internet. "To our knowledge, this device is the first of its kind," said Baskin. "It solves a growing concern of the industry as more and more customers cancel traditional phone service and switch to VoIP. Our module works with any manufacturer's system, new or old, and also enables two-way voice." The system features a built-in router and will be sold through dealers. The target price of the ATW-IP Intervoice Module is around $125 per unit. Said Baskin, "It's a very powerful solution."