B
blueman
I am looking for honest, unbiased, unemotional answers to this
question. (I know it's Usenet, but one can always hope...)
I currently have a fire & burglary monitoring policy with the local
dominant alarm company. I own the equipment and I am responsible for
service charges to fix the equipment.
They charge me $36/month for straight Internet monitoring.
National online monitoring companies offer seemingly the same service
for $8.95/month. Or 1/4 the cost.
My high-priced local company claims:
- They are big (20,000 customers) - but the national competitor claims
40,000 customers
- Their service center is "local" -- but it's really halfway across the
state so does that really mean anything in the day of the Internet
- They are a "security company" vs. competitors being "monitoring"
companies. Though not sure what that means or why I care
- They have a 5-star UL-listed center - but the national competitor
claims to be UL-listed and it's not clear what 5-stars means and who
even grants such certification. Sounds like marketing hype.
- They have 30-second average response time -- but competitor claims the
same
- They say they have a better BBB track record than big national
competitors - but the competitor claims an A+ BBB rating which can't
be too bad
The bottom line is that I can't see one compelling reason to pay 4 times
the competitor rate for what seems to be a commodity service.
- I live in a very safe, low crime neighborhood.
- I primarily pay for the monitoring to get the insurance break.
- I don't stay up nights worrying about fires or burglaries and in any
case I still have the in-house alarm to warn me of a fire and scare
off amateur burgalers.
- I am technically adept and have no problem servicing and programming
my system
Seems like worst case perhaps the response time will be a few seconds
longer in some rare cases or maybe there is a small chance they will
make a mistake -- but the point is that there are so many other failure
points in a security system and we are talking about rare events (fire,
burglary) anyway.
So, why pay 4 times as much????
question. (I know it's Usenet, but one can always hope...)
I currently have a fire & burglary monitoring policy with the local
dominant alarm company. I own the equipment and I am responsible for
service charges to fix the equipment.
They charge me $36/month for straight Internet monitoring.
National online monitoring companies offer seemingly the same service
for $8.95/month. Or 1/4 the cost.
My high-priced local company claims:
- They are big (20,000 customers) - but the national competitor claims
40,000 customers
- Their service center is "local" -- but it's really halfway across the
state so does that really mean anything in the day of the Internet
- They are a "security company" vs. competitors being "monitoring"
companies. Though not sure what that means or why I care
- They have a 5-star UL-listed center - but the national competitor
claims to be UL-listed and it's not clear what 5-stars means and who
even grants such certification. Sounds like marketing hype.
- They have 30-second average response time -- but competitor claims the
same
- They say they have a better BBB track record than big national
competitors - but the competitor claims an A+ BBB rating which can't
be too bad
The bottom line is that I can't see one compelling reason to pay 4 times
the competitor rate for what seems to be a commodity service.
- I live in a very safe, low crime neighborhood.
- I primarily pay for the monitoring to get the insurance break.
- I don't stay up nights worrying about fires or burglaries and in any
case I still have the in-house alarm to warn me of a fire and scare
off amateur burgalers.
- I am technically adept and have no problem servicing and programming
my system
Seems like worst case perhaps the response time will be a few seconds
longer in some rare cases or maybe there is a small chance they will
make a mistake -- but the point is that there are so many other failure
points in a security system and we are talking about rare events (fire,
burglary) anyway.
So, why pay 4 times as much????