When comparing security companies and their monitoring services, make sure that you are comparing the same level of service. The most important questions you should ask of any prospective alarm company are below. Following the questions, are the answers as they pertain to the Canadian Security Team and our level of service. As you read these answers, you will notice that we are committed to providing the highest level of quality and service
Question #1: Does the station meet any requirements?
Canadian Security Team's central station has been constructed to meet all ULC requirements. What this means in simple terms, our central can monitor BANKS and emergency services (Police, Fire and Ambulance).
Question #2: Where is it located (i.e. building, bedroom, basement...)?
Canadian Security Team's central is located two floors below the surface in a fortified basement of a large commercial building. This site was chosen because it is hidden from the general public and is one of the safest places as well. Access to the site is very limited and controlled by the central station. No one can enter without being detected.
Question #3: What level of protection does it have?
The central controls all access doors to the building, has a state of the art security system and has security cameras throughout the whole building. Should someone enter the station, there is a man trap to prevent any unauthorized entry to the core where the operators and equipment is are located.
Question #4: What sort of back-up systems do they have? **This is very important**
Canadian Security Team's central has some of the most sophisticated back-up equipment in the world. Backing-up the power grid is the main generator, which is then backed-up by a second generator. All operating equipment that is in use, has an equivalent back-up waiting on stand-by should the need arise. Should the phone system in the central go down, it is backed-up by an analog phone at each work station that the operator can switch to. The most impressive piece of back-up equipment is for the phone lines coming into the central. If any or all of the phone lines go down, the system backs-up to a wireless set up that allows communication between the central and alarm panels to continue. Should this happen in any other central, it would be rendered helpless and could not respond to any alarms. In the event of a catastrophe, all of our Canadian monitoring stations are linked together to ensure uninterrupted service 24/7.
Question #5: What kind of experience do they have?
Our monitoring staff have been trained and supervised on the most modern and reliable software in the industry by some of the most experienced professionals in the industry.
Question #6: How often does the alarm panel do a communication test to the central?
CST program a communication test to the monitoring station every 24 hours. Should the panel fail to send a signal, we are notified and we will advise the customer that we failed to receive the daily test. This offers you the best level of protection available on a phone line. The other companies run their tests either on a weekly, monthly basis or not at all. Therefore your panel could be broken for several days and they wouldn't even know about it. This level of service is totally unacceptable to the Canadian Security Team.
Question #7: What signals are included in your "monitoring package" (i.e. limited monitoring)?
Canadian Security Team systems are all programmed to send every signal that they are capable of, to the central station. This means that anytime you arm/disarm the system, any alarm conditions, any troubles with the system, anything to do with it is reported to the central. Again, providing the customer with the best level of service. Other companies could have "limited" monitoring where they only report alarms and that's it. This does not allow the customer to take full advantage of the systems capabilities. Once again this level of service is totally unacceptable to Canadian Security Team.
Question #8: How long does it take for the signal to get to the station?
This all depends on the equipment the consumer purchases and how the company programs the system. About 5-10 years ago a security system took about 4 minutes to communicate from start to finish with the central. Today it only takes 30 seconds for Canadian Security Team systems to communicate to the central.
