SNA upgrades Keyscan relationship

MONTREAL—The Security Network of America (SNA) has announced an evolved partnership with access control provider Keyscan for centrally hosted access control. The central station group announced the partnership at its annual CEO & sales manager's meeting here on April 14.

Last year, SNA selected Keyscan as an approved vendor for managed access control in which Keyscan managed a local access control solution that the central station had on site. The April 14 announcement serves to further the relationship and allows Keyscan to host a fully remote access control solution for SNA shareholder centrals.

"With centrally managed access control, you need to spend money on servers, IT infrastructure, bandwidth. There's an investment, and that's caused a delay to people getting into centrally managed access control," Keyscan director of marketing Steve Dentinger told Security Systems News. "Now SNA shareholders can get into centrally managed access control. They can get in on the RMR that centrally managed access control offers since this partnership eliminates the barrier to entry. Up to now, it's been a stumbling block for them."

According to Stanley Oppenheim, president of SNA member central station DGA Security, the time was right to evolve the relationship with Keyscan.

"Keyscan will host all the access control from their facility. This has a number of advantages. It is ideal for a company that wants to test the market, but isn't sure they want to commit," Oppenheim said. "They can build a base of customers before making that cost commitment. Also, it will be a permanent solution for many."

SNA was founded in 1988 as an alliance of independent security companies, including central monitoring stations, installers and service technicians. Initially, SNA provided member companies a forum to discuss relevant business issues as well as a unified voice in dealing with manufacturers, according to group's website. The group's dynamic with manufacturers led to the development of SNA's Approved Vendor Program, which provides partnerships with vetted security product manufacturers and distributors.

"The Keyscan product has been very successful and there are many SNA companies using it with great success today," Oppenheim said.