I wanted to share my experience with Nextalarm. First, let me say I really, really wanted to like this company. I like that they let me manage my service over the Internet, review my logs online, and get alerts by email. I haven't seen any other alarm companies do this. I also liked their price, which is very competitive.
When I first signed up for service, all seemed good. A friendly technician walked me through programming my panel, and all seemed well. I should note that I am using the service over a standard phone line; not VoIP, so things should be relatively straightforward.
In my second week of service, I accidentally set off my alarm. However, the monitoring company never called. I reported this to Nextalarm, who said they would investigate. A day later, I got an email apology that said their system was misconfigued, in that their system was not alerting the monitoring company (which is subcontracted out). They said they fixed the problem and gave me a month free. Fine I thought....
A few weeks later I ran a test of my alarm, and found a problem. My alarm panel was calling into their system and transmitting its data, but it was not getting the final handshake (known as a "kiss-off") correctly. Thus, my panel did not think it had sent the data correctly, so it would keep redialing Nextalarm repeatedly. I reported this to Nextalarm, and got a message back a day or two later saying they identified a problem on their end; they fixed it & offered me another month free. Great I thought....
All was well for another month until I started having the redialing problems again. Strangely, this does not happen all the time; it is intermittent without any apparent cause. I reported the problem again, and this time Nextalarm was not so helpful. First, they kept trying to tell me my phone line or wiring might be bad. This is highly unlikely, as both the phone wiring & alarm panel are brand new (they were installed by a professional as part of a major home renovation). They also said they did not see anything wrong on their side. I kept going back & forth with them, not getting very far, with Nextalarm still asserting it might be my phone lines. I even contacted my alarm installed, who said he had seen similar problems before when monitoring companies do not configure their systems 100% correct for the particular panel dialing into them.
When I first signed up for service, all seemed good. A friendly technician walked me through programming my panel, and all seemed well. I should note that I am using the service over a standard phone line; not VoIP, so things should be relatively straightforward.
In my second week of service, I accidentally set off my alarm. However, the monitoring company never called. I reported this to Nextalarm, who said they would investigate. A day later, I got an email apology that said their system was misconfigued, in that their system was not alerting the monitoring company (which is subcontracted out). They said they fixed the problem and gave me a month free. Fine I thought....
A few weeks later I ran a test of my alarm, and found a problem. My alarm panel was calling into their system and transmitting its data, but it was not getting the final handshake (known as a "kiss-off") correctly. Thus, my panel did not think it had sent the data correctly, so it would keep redialing Nextalarm repeatedly. I reported this to Nextalarm, and got a message back a day or two later saying they identified a problem on their end; they fixed it & offered me another month free. Great I thought....
All was well for another month until I started having the redialing problems again. Strangely, this does not happen all the time; it is intermittent without any apparent cause. I reported the problem again, and this time Nextalarm was not so helpful. First, they kept trying to tell me my phone line or wiring might be bad. This is highly unlikely, as both the phone wiring & alarm panel are brand new (they were installed by a professional as part of a major home renovation). They also said they did not see anything wrong on their side. I kept going back & forth with them, not getting very far, with Nextalarm still asserting it might be my phone lines. I even contacted my alarm installed, who said he had seen similar problems before when monitoring companies do not configure their systems 100% correct for the particular panel dialing into them.
I finally ran a phone noise test using the diagnostic output from my modem & gave them the results showing the phone line was crystal clear. Nextalarm responded to this saying they had their top engineers look at the logs on their side, and they could not identify the problem; essentially they threw their hands in the air and gave up. They also gave me some nonsense about how perhaps some portion of the call between me & their system was traveling over VoIP and that might be messing things up.
Based on what I've read here as well as on other websites, I asked if we could switch the protocol from CID to SIA or 4/2 (not that I have any idea what this means, but from my research it appears that the CID protocol can be very sensitive while SIA & 4/2 are more robust). Their response was: if you want to do that, please use SIA. I found this answer to be very unhelpful, as I am not an alarm technician and was looking for a bit more guidance from them on what to do next.
This is where I am now - although I pointed out to them that other people have reported similar problems, they do not seem to be willing or capable of fixing the problem. I'm somewhat frustrated, because as I noted I really wanted to use their service, but it looks like I will have to find another company that is better able to get the system configured on their end.
If I manage to sort things out, I'll post an update here.
Based on what I've read here as well as on other websites, I asked if we could switch the protocol from CID to SIA or 4/2 (not that I have any idea what this means, but from my research it appears that the CID protocol can be very sensitive while SIA & 4/2 are more robust). Their response was: if you want to do that, please use SIA. I found this answer to be very unhelpful, as I am not an alarm technician and was looking for a bit more guidance from them on what to do next.
This is where I am now - although I pointed out to them that other people have reported similar problems, they do not seem to be willing or capable of fixing the problem. I'm somewhat frustrated, because as I noted I really wanted to use their service, but it looks like I will have to find another company that is better able to get the system configured on their end.
If I manage to sort things out, I'll post an update here.
Review For: NextAlarm Security (Con't)
Recent Review For NextAlarm (Con't):
This customer review has been submitted anonymously by a present or former client of Nextalarm.com. Alarmsystemreviews.com does not encourage or discourage its readers to do business with any particular alarm service
provider. Please remember that many of these companies have thousands of other clients that may or may not be happy with their service, and this is only a small sampling of the opinions of their customers. If you have had a good or bad experience with a particular alarm company, please submit your review! Reviews are only edited for vulgar language and spam.
Thanks for submitting!
Thanks for submitting!
Alarm Basics | Articles | System Design | Device Types | Reviews | Crime Prevention Tips | Evaluation | Security Cameras
Home | Article Archive | Alarm Devices | Home Security Alarm Design | Before You Get A Quote | Cameras & CCTV | Crime Prevention | Evaluate Your Home Security | Just For Fun | National Alarm Reviews | Local Alarm Reviews | Review Submission | Securing Doors | Securing Windows
Copyright 2006-2009 Home Security
More Home Security Resources On Alarm System Reviews.Com: