Telular delivers manufacturer-agnostic, cellular, two-way voice solution

CHICAGO—Wireless connectivity solution provider Telular on Aug. 16 announced the availability of two-way voice over cellular using its Telguard TG-1 Express solution. According to Telular vice president of marketing and business development Shawn Welsh, the TG-1 Express will save time and money for central stations and dealers by becoming the one-stop shop for two-way voice communication from the panel to the central station.

"First and foremost this works with virtually everyone. It's not manufacturer-specific," Welsh told Security Systems News. "We implemented this in such a way so that it would work with virtually any device that supports Contact ID two-way voice, whether it's an alarm panel or a PERS unit."

Part of the problem with two-way voice solutions, according to Welsh, is that they traditionally have required central stations to buy manufacturer-specific receivers to recombine split voice and data signals from the panel.

"This is a feature we've added into our message center, so from a central station point of view, they don't need to worry about the panel that's at the premise. They simply know that a Telguard supporting two-way voice will work," Welsh said. "Another difference is that other solutions are not only manufacturer-specific, but they also require central stations to buy new pieces of hardware—you'll have to buy a new panel and buy new software."

The TG-1 Express is installed at the panel on-site and separates the voice and data channels for error-free transmission of the alarm signal to Telular's message center. Once there, the two separate halves—the data side with the alarm signal and the voice side with the two-way voice capability—are rebuilt and delivered to the central station as a voice call and a data stream to the central's receiver, an added level of signal processing that saves central stations from having to buy extra equipment to recombine the two channels.

Syracuse, N.Y.-based Rapid Response Monitoring Services has tested Telular's two-way voice cellular solution, and supports the service for all of its dealers.

"We're very excited that Telular has been able to do this—we've had to do some considerable legwork to get some of the other two-way services to work and it seems like they've done a lot of that on the back end—and we're ready to offer it to dealers as soon as Telular is ready," said RRMS president Jeffrey Atkins.