Contact ID is an alarm reporting format, one of several used by the alarm industry. Alarm reporting formats are methods for communicating a lot of complicated information very quickly, using nothing m...
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Subscriber Discussion
Alarm Reporting Formats / Contact ID Overview
Ari Erenthal
Jan 09, 2017U
Undisclosed #1
Jan 12, 2017I cannot wait for technology to uplift the alarm industry. Although we have phone apps and cloud based solutions it is not enough to kill off this dinosaur. Yes I can see the beauty of the old days as they will be forever logged in my mental museum of archaic security methodologies.
"Alexa, when will you get off your butt and secure my home/business with IoT already?"
Ari Erenthal
Jan 12, 2017
John Bazyk
Jan 13, 2017I hate CID, we almost never use it. We are either using Bosch formates or DMP formates. I prefer DMP as it goes to a DMP reciever and we dont need to program zones at the central station because it pushes full data to the receiver similar to CID but it tends to be more reliable. I do however love to takeover panels using CID because we can do it with a simple takeover cellular radio.
UI
Undisclosed Integrator #2
Jan 13, 2017I'd be interested to know more about the issues with alarm reporting over VoIP lines. Are certain formats more resilient? What physically causes the issues?
Ari Erenthal
Jan 15, 2017Basically, DTMF relies on a precise reproduction of a series of tones. VoIP lines can compress the signal in order to save bandwidth, causing the central station to be unable to decode the signal, or can cut off the beginning or end of the phone call, causing the handshake or the checksum to be missed.
Here's a good explanation of exactly how pulsed dialing (for formats such as 4x1) and DTMF dialing (for formats such as Contact ID or the various Bosch formats) works.
UI
Undisclosed Integrator #3
Mar 24, 2017Still useful when remote sites can not be connected through LAN/WAN because there is no network or the IT policy restricts even a VPN connection.
GSM communicators can send CID in SMS, and a GSM modem with receiver software can translate CID to an event in central monitoring system like Genetec SC or anything else.
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