atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Security, Alarms and Paging security

I am a phone guy, I would like to start doing alarms and want to know how i can get started? thanks for the help

I would first check to see the liscensing requirments for your state. I did a quick search and all I found was that as of 2004 there were no liscense requirments but they were trying to get them inacted. Second I would take a hard look at the insurance you will need and decide wether you can sell enough alarms to make it worth while. I have seen several security companies that also picked up doing phones, but can't recall ever seeing a "Phone" company doing alarms as a side item. In my opinion, it would be hard to do it right and make it profitable without making it your sole area of efforts. That's pretty much the situation we were in, we still maintain our existing customers but we don't push the alarm side at all anymore, we found that it was just too much heart ache and liabilty to make it worth while for the little that we were doing. As far as the technical side, if you can do phone systems alarms would be no problem, but if you have no experience at all I would suggest at least at the beginning hire a experienced tech to start with to learn the quirks of the industry by working with him, plus you could use him to pull your phone cables between alarm jobs.

Also take a look at different vendors many of them will train you at least on their panel. I do not do any alarm stuff anymore (EXCEPT MY OWN)..license is required in jersey. Though I was using ademco panels which I like and their support was preaty good. I agree with Johnyreb If you are new to the installs find someone with experince to learn the in's and outs it will save a lot of headaches

I agree with Johnyreb totally.
Normally it's an alarm guy going to the telecom business. In my case, the alarm company owned their own monitoring station/paging company so it was a natural.

The insurance is what turns most people away from the business. There are also different levels of insurance as well depending on whether you do burg - risk factors eg. low, medium, high (drug stores, banks, electronic shops are high risk) and fire (high risk/insurance and requires licensing).
If you decide to get out of the security business down the road, and wish to maintain your existing customers, you need to keep the higher insurance unless you "sell" off your security customers to another company.

In summary, you can't afford to dabble in it. With the costs invovled, it's either go big or stay home. Hiring an experienced tech is a great idea. Take advantage of the panel manufacturers offering courses on the set up and programming of their systems as well.