[ILUG] voip & alarm systems

[Stephen Reilly]

> >  I'm at home, struggling with ISDN. If I threw it out, I'd get NTL 
> > broadband at about half the cost. However, I need to have a PSTN 
> > connection for my monitored alarm.
> > 
> >  If I got in NTL broadband, is there anyway that I could 
> still have my 
> > eircom phonewatch alarm dial home ? I assume I'd end up 
> having to have 
> > some sort of a linux router on all the time, acting as a 
> VoIP gateway.
> 
> Second phone line?
Eircom Phonewatch is benign. It acts as a central station (monitoring
station) and basically sits there waiting for a call from your alarm
system. The digimodem in the alarm in certain conditions (mains
fault/tamper/part or full alarm) will initiate a call to the central
station, in this case eircom phonewatch, and tell it what's happened.
So... if you're home and using your phone line then that's ok as your
alarm will not be armed ergo no need for the line. Unfortunetly
digimodems cannot force your pc offhook in order to make the alarm call
so running bittorrent over the phoneline while on holiday will render
phonewatch useless.

Later,
Stephen