Please thank our 2006 CSAA Electronic Security Forum & Exposition Sponsors: ADI (Thursday Opening Social Event Beverages); Altronix (Thursday CSAA Board of Directors Luncheon); Bosch Security Systems (Thursday CSAA Board, Sponsors & Exhibitors Dinner); DICE Corporation (Saturday Continental Breakfast); Digital Security Controls (Sunday Continental Breakfast); DMP (Saturday Afternoon Coffee Break and hotel keycards); FireLite (Friday Spouses/Guests Hospitality); GE Security (Happy Hour at the Exhibit Hall); HID Corp. (Luncheon at the Exhibit Hall); Honeywell Security (Sunday CSAA Excellence Awards luncheon); Innovative Business Software (Saturday Morning Coffee Break); LaSalle Bank (Friday Afternoon Coffee Break); Micro Key Software (Opening Reception Food (partial)); NAPCO Security Group (Friday Continental Breakfast); Security Industry Association (Forum Sponsor); and System Sensor (Friday morning Coffee Break and Saturday Spouses/Guests Hospitality).
Current Status of Industry VoIP and Reciprocity Initiatives
Alarm VoIP Consumer Notification
As many of you know, we were successful in getting our "Alarm VoIP Consumer Notification" amendment included in the House Commerce Committee's passed telecommunications rewrite bill. But that is less than half the battle; the Senate still needs to pass its version of the telecommunications rewrite bill and then they need to go to a House/Senate Conference to resolve the differences.
IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED TO BE TAKEN:
The next step is for the Senate Commerce Committee to take up the bill. They are currently scheduled to have a mark up on June 20. That is why we are asking you to do two things:
1. Most Senators will be home for the Memorial Day Recess May 29 through June 5. You need to call and e-mail today a request for an appointment with your Senator especially if he sits on the Commerce Committee. A link to a draft letter to your Senator requesting an appointment is below along with a list of who you need to send a request for a meeting to in the Senator's office.
LETTER TO ASK FOR AN APPOINTMENT WITH YOUR SENATOR - MEMORIAL DAY RECESS
2, Send an e-mail and call the staffer in the Senator's Washington office who handles his/her telecommunications work. The staff are very important and will recommend to the Senator whether he/she should support our proposals.
Alarm VoIP Consumer Notification
We are concerned that when consumers or cable operators install VoIP phone service they are inadvertently disconnecting their alarm systems. As a result, consumers who opt for VoIP services will not have the alarm services they paid to have installed. This means that their life, health safety and property at risk. Approximately 26 million homes and businesses currently have alarm services. About half of them are self tested every 30 days. Those customers will potentially not have alarm protection for up to 30 days. The other 13 million legacy systems are not self-tested and the consumer may not know that they no longer have alarm services until an emergency occurs.
We are seeking a simple notification by the VoIP provider at installation and/or number activation that the consumer needs to:
- Test his/her equipment
- Notify his/her alarm company
- Have a 24-hour backup battery service for the modem to which the VoIP phone service is connected.
The House included a similar provision. We want the Senate to include the attached language which would also require clear and conspicuous notice be included with the packaging of equipment sold to consumers for the installation of VoIP services. The current VoIP business model is for consumers to purchase from consumer electronics stores such as Circuit City and Best Buy the equipment and software needed to for VoIP phone service and then have the consumer self install that equipment. We believe that it is imperative that equipment and software sold to consumers to install VoIP phone services must include the same clear and conspicuous warning outlined above.
Alarm Monitoring Licensure Reciprocity
As many of you know from direct experience, the industry has moved over the past decade from one based upon intra-latta monitoring to one now based upon long distance monitoring. This has allowed us to keep the cost of monitoring relatively stable and to serve the consumer better. Costs have also been kept down due to the introduction of more monitoring competition.
However, monitoring licensure continues to be done on a state and local basis, a very arcane and costly procedure to comply with and which impedes the efficiencies that Congress and technology have provided over the past decade.
That is why we are seeking the enactment of the "Alarm Monitoring Model Licensing and Reciprocity Act of 2006." Under the proposed legislation, states
would continue to have the responsibility for alarm monitoring licensure. However, if a given state adopted national model licensure rules or already had in place equivalent rules, then every other state would have to honor that license much as they honor a driver's license issued by another state.
We are asking our members to include a request to consider passing the Alarm Monitoring Model Licensing and Reciprocity Act of 2006 when you speak with your senators and their staff. Below are some talking points to use when addressing this issue.
The Senators who need to be contacted include (* indicates Senators up for re-election):
- Ted Stevens (R-AK)
- Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI)
- John S. McCain (R-AZ)
- John D. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
- Conrad Burns (R-MT)*
- John F. Kerry (D-MA)
- Trent Lott (R-MI)*
- Byron I Dorgan (D-ND)
- Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX)*
- Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
- Olympia Snowe (R-ME)*
- Bill Nelson (D-FL)*
- Gordon Smith (R-OR)
- Maria Cantwell (D-WA)*
- John Ensign (R-NV)*
- Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
- George Allen (R-VA)*
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)*
- John Sununu (R-NH)
- Mark Pryor (D-AR)
- Jim DeMint (R-SC)
- David Vitter (R-LA)
MATERIALS
Act today to make sure that those who depend upon you to protect their life, health safety, and property have the services on which they have come to rely.
Please contact the above Senators and their staffers about these two issues of great importance to us.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Bill Signer at signer@navigantconsulting.com, (202) 973-3141; Ankur Brahmbhatt at ABrahmbhatt@navigantconsulting.com, (202) 973 - 3130; or Steve Doyle at director@csaaul.org, 703-242-4670, x. 13.
