NMC first to receive UL 827A listing for central station hosted services

LAKE FOREST, Calif.—National Monitoring Center (NMC), a Netwatch Group Company, announced that it is the first monitoring center issued the UL 827A listing for Central Station Hosted Services, allowing it to become a provider of 3rd party IT services.

This designation comes from the Underwriters Laboratories (UL), a leading global safety science organization, upon having met strict compliances.

“We are extremely honored to be the first monitoring center to earn this designation. Central Stations that aren’t able to build a back up center can leverage our monitoring centers to keep them in compliance,” NMC President Woodie Andrawos said in the announcement. “For nearly 20 years, we have prided ourselves on being the premier 3rd party monitoring center that provides 24/7 best-in-class wholesale monitoring and unparalleled support.”

The operations of central stations are advancing with the increased use of information technology methods. This process, however, requires a significant investment in infrastructure and personnel with specialized IT skills. UL’s Hosted Central Station Service category allows central stations to achieve increased operational efficiencies and capabilities through the use of a 3rd party provider of information technology services having received a UL Certification, such as NMC.
Examples of some hosted services include:
•    Disaster recovery services
•    Central Station Automation Software as a service
•    Receiver and server hosting

With new regulations emerging, every monitoring center meeting certain criteria will be required to have a backup monitoring center. Those not wishing to build an additional brick and mortar station can leverage monitoring stations having met the strict standards to earn the UL 827A designation as their backup monitoring location.

Qualified monitoring stations for the UL 827A certification are required to undergo an audit during each calendar year by UL’s audit staff to verify continued compliance. Such audits assess both the monitoring station facility and the delivery of services to subscribers who have been issued UL Monitoring Certificates.

NMC, which has monitoring centers in California and Texas, expands its suite of wholesale monitoring services with proactive video monitoring, exclusively available through its channel partners.