Codes & Standards By: Kim Caron Director of Business - - PDF document

Central Station Interface with Fire Alarm and the Relevant Codes & Standards By: Kim Caron Director of Business Development

 Communication Paths  History  Panel Testing Requirements  ULC Listed Station requirements  ULC S561 Station Requirements  Cellular Phone Apps

 POTS: Plain old telephone line  GSM: cellular  IP: Internet Protocol

 Panel connection from the fire alarm panel  Contact ID and SIA are standard

transmission protocol

 Mediums : POTS, IP and GSM  Dual path required



History



POTS have been used for monitoring with the majority monitored fire alarm systems across Canada.



Dual path POTS. Was designed to have a back up should one line fail.



GSM - Cellular Network



Advancement of technology allows signal transmission via cellular network. Most manufactures use the Rogers Network. Coverage throughout Canada is increasing. Can be weak in areas. VERY Important to ensure a strong signal strength at time of installation to eliminate future problems.

 IP – Internet Protocol  Needs to be used in combination with

another medium. Not reliable to be used as

• nly communication path.

 Internet connection not always stable and

does drop from time to time, depending on the carrier.

 Back up power supply required to assist

during power fails.

 ULC accepts any of the following

combinations:

 POTS (dual path, grandfathered)  POTS / IP  POTS / GSM  IP / GSM  GSM Supervised (polled every 90

seconds by station received and 180 seconds by Fire Panel)

 Above may vary depending on panel

manufacture

 Codes

 Fire Alarm, Fire Trouble, Supervisory, AC

Fail, Low Battery

 Alarm transmission codes are

programmed in the Fire Panel by the installing company.

 Panel sends the codes directly to the

dialer which transmits to the Central Station.

Exception one communicator has 4

codes preprogrammed.

 At time of Installation the installing

company MUST test all programmed codes and provide descriptions to the central station.

 Each panel manufacture does things a little

different and the installing company should be trained by the manufacture prior to installing.

 Process may vary slightly from station

to station.

 Installer calls station prior to install  Gives account number, along with

pertain information such as panel type, medium, and time line to have account in “Test”.

 Installer needs to ensure the test all

codes that will be set to the station on each path of communication.

 Once completed all signals need to be

verified with the station and full descriptions are required for all code.

 Communication to the station is very

important.

 We are very good at the service we

provide

 However we are not mind readers  Never assume we know what each

supervisory or trouble indicates.

 Nothing worse than telling a customer or

Dealer a trouble reported without an explanation to back it up.

 Ensure the Cellular communicator is

showing a “Strong” signal strength

 Ensure the zone tripped is sending the

correct code identifier

 Ensure IP supplier offers a good service.

Otherwise it can cause customer and installing company frustration on high volume signal transmissions from communication and AC failures.

 All ULC Fire listed Central Stations are

inspected annually. At a high level ULC listed stations are required to have the following: Complete redundancy Signal Receivers Servers Operator Terminals Mantrap 2 hour rated Fire protection Outdoor/indoor cameras Voice recordings Disaster Recovery Data storage Complete Power back up UPS / Generator

 Canadian Building code has adhere to

ULC S561

 Stations must:

 Fire Alarms: must complete fire dispatch

within 30 seconds of station receiving the signal.

 Notify customer within 5 minutes of

receiving a Trouble signal

 Fire Alarms are required to be reset within 8 hours.  Fire Trouble/ Supervisor signals must be restored within 12 hours from receipt of

• signal. If a restore is not received from

station another notification will be made.  If no reset received by station another notification needs to occur.  Important for dealer to train on site staff

• n how to reset panel.

 Since 97% of the worlds population

has a cellular phone

 Of that 97%...98% of these people

never have their phone more than two feet away from them at all times.

 Naturally is made sense to create an

app to assist the dealer.

 When entering Data into the

Account Search, the system will search

 Account Number field  Address Field  Account Name Field

So, if you put in “main” for example, it would produce all your accounts in a list, that have “main” in the name, like Main District Office, and it would produce all accounts on “Main” Street as

• well. Then you can easily scroll and

pick the one you want to work with.

Questions? Thank you.

Kim Caron Director Business Development Armstrong’s National Alarm Monitoring 1-866-201-0551 kim@armcom.ca www.armcom.ca