New IP solution company ipDatatel says its BATs are the best

SUGARLAND, Texas—Broadband communications company ipDatatel is set to offer a new broadband alarm solution to the market. IpDatatel lauds broadband's general dependability for alarm signal transmission and claims their solution is the best in terms of ease, price and dependability. The solution—called a broadband alarm transmitter, or BAT—takes advantage of broadband's inherent speed and built-in error correction.

IpDatatel account executive Ryan McConnell said the company's solution would ease the POTS sunset for dealers. “The BAT was designed with alarm dealers in mind. With the ease of our plug-and-play BAT, alarm installers and technicians do not need to spend the extra time and training worrying about routers and static IP addresses,” McConnell said. “It is as simple as plugging it in.”

Andre Gros, another ipDatatel account executive, said the solution was widely deployable, making it versatile. “The BAT is compatible with most major alarm panels such as DSC and Honeywell, without a telephone line and the added advantage of real-time signal transmissions through the Internet,” Gros said. “This is not just another off-the-shelf VoIP that has been reconfigured, the BAT is a completely new transmitter.”

With the current proliferation of smart phones, ipDatatel has also adapted BAT transmissions to the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android allowing the end-user a greater range of features and more accessibility.

“The main protocol the Internet uses—TCP—was built with error correction built in. When it sends a stream of data, all that data is in packets that are sequentially numbered. If an end point misses a piece, it can request just that piece,” said ipDatatel systems administrator Steve Hillin. “That's how broadband keeps data in line. What existing solutions are trying to do is utilize VoIP technology. The problem with that is … that there are no integrity checks that tell our phones at our end points, 'Hey I missed a piece of information.' So existing technologies that are trying to use voice to retransmit alarm signals on older analog protocols without error correction or integrity checks lead to alarm signals coming in incorrectly to the central station … we eliminate that by using standard TCP protocols over the Internet using two-way error correction.”

“In a time when you've got a lot of IP products coming out, it's pretty common to have issues—difficulty with establishing a connection, programming, difficulty maintaining a connection. We've got a few measures in place that are pretty wonderful,” said ipDatatel account executive Ryan McConnell. “First off, we retransmit everything to the central station via our collocation facility.” That collocation facility is located in Houston's old Federal Reserve building, built in 1972.

“It's an extremely secure building. It was built to withstand a category five hurricane,” McConnell said. “The building has never lost power. It's on three grids. Also, we're real flexible. We accept any type of broadband Internet connection and in the retransmission of signals, we communicate in either Contact ID or SIA.”

IpDatatel account executive Andre Gros said ipDatatel's web-based portal offered ease of programming and brand recognition for the dealer. “There's also a web-based dealer portal that will give dealers and end users a virtual keypad,” Gros said. “That portal can be customized with the dealer's own logo, if they choose. End users can go there and log in and have the virtual keypad, as well.” Further, while current version of the BAT is wired, a future permutation—due to hit the market in September—will be wireless, utilizing Zigbee technology, according to company execs.

“Our goal here is to provide affordable alarm and home automation products to the security industry,” said McConnell. “We've got an energy BAT coming up … there are a lot of other products out there, but the set up cost is extremely high. You can walk into a distributor and for under $75 buy our device and pay $3 a month as a dealer and you've got your primary communicator.”