Improvements in GSM networks throughout Latin America have increased the migration of ECM to GPRS monitoring, as this technology offers cost savings and the possibility of providing greater security and good services.
by Iván Darío Quintero
The investments that telco companies have been making in network infrastructure over the last three years to expand the cellular coverage of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), have allowed the alternative business of monitoring through GPRS to have had extensive growth and positioning in Latin America. So far, the applications and scope of this business are just beginning to be exploited, but every day more devices based on this technology are being implemented.
In the specific case of central monitoring stations (ECM), thanks to these technologies there has been a strong rethinking of the business, moreover, it could be said that since alarm monitoring began, there has never been a development at the telecommunications level that revolutionized the industry so much.
The savings in communications, added to the higher level of security and service that can be offered to the end user, are just some of the factors that have motivated the wide acceptance that this technology is having for alarm monitoring.
Therefore, many monitoring companies are moving towards the adoption of the trend, which in any case, poses new technological and commercial challenges.
To know the disadvantages of migration, the advantages for ECMs, the new business possibilities, in short, the "hot" topics regarding the subject, we made this article with the collaboration of Mr. Pablo Bertucelli, general manager of RightKey, Argentina and Jose Luis Berenguel, national sales manager of LPL Development, Mexico, both experts in the subject.
Evolution from fixed telephony
It is worth remembering that traditionally monitoring has been supported through the telephone line, at least in places that are not very far from the urban centers. However, since the first cellular networks that appeared, AMPS and TDMA/CDMA, monitoring companies knew that there would be a good way to eliminate the latent risk posed by the use of cables in alarm systems, in addition to enabling the provision of the service in rural areas.
Without major technological advances in these first generations of cellular network, adoption was diverse and widespread, though not massive. The high costs involved in the use of this form of communication kept it as a niche solution, appropriate for "VIP" customers of monitoring companies.
Soon telco companies migrated to GSM, since this technology offered the possibility of providing more and better services to cell phone users, as well as the option of venturing into new business, this because GSM has in addition to a higher bandwidth, a higher transmission speed, 115 kilobits per second, compared to 9.6 of previous technologies.
But beyond these characteristics, the most relevant aspect for the migration to GSM, would be marked by the technology that would come with GSM, I speak of the General System of Radio Packets (GPRS), which working on GSM, would allow: the transmission of voice and data simultaneously, transfer files and web browsing, which undoubtedly deployed for telco a range of possibilities with monitoring centers, banks and all kinds of companies.
So, while telcos created the communication bridges to accommodate the new system, technology manufacturers designed products for monitoring alarms that could communicate through GPRS.
In the words of Pablo Bertucelli: "as GPRS was already a stable service, and there were manufacturers with proven equipment, a double technological leap was made in the traditional monitoring of alarms. You abandon the telephone line as the main channel and move to a data service compared to the cellular audio channels that were commonly used, but much cheaper."
For monitoring centers the implementation of this technology offers many advantages, one of the most important is the savings in terms of communications with the alarm panel, which would lower the price of the security package for the end user, and the operating costs for the ECM, the benefits would undoubtedly be seen with the migration, but a question arose: would all the installed communications equipment have to be changed?
Technological implementation
A monitoring company that has hundreds or thousands of alarm panels installed and wants to migrate to GPRS does not want to think that it has to change them just to implement more expensive ones, the same happens with the equipment it has in the plant, so as Pablo Bertucelli said the ECM has two options to implement GPRS monitoring, of course, one is cheaper than the other.
The first is to install a GPRS receiver, which is responsible for receiving the events from all the equipment through the GPRS service, then it will send the events to the monitoring software, emulating a standard telephone receiver. The monitoring software will identify the signals normally and the operator staff will not even notice that the system has changed.
The second option for ECM is to integrate GPRS into the same monitoring software. Some of the newer programs allow this, as they already have an IP/GPRS module, but if the company's software is older, it can even be based on MS-DOS, with the GPRS receiver solution the implementation can be done anyway.
On the side of the panel, the important thing to be able to continue using all the installed equipment, is that the GPRS communicator has a good emulation method, which "deceives" the panel by making it believe that it is connected by land line as always, and directly with the ECM, many manufacturing companies already offer this type of devices.
In any case, for the ECM, it will be very important to have a reliable Internet connection, with a fixed IP address, and make minor configurations in your firewall systems and routers, because the communication signals will come, from the telco equipment to the Internet exchange.
Savings and better relationship with the customer
There are several factors of savings and better relationship with the client with the implementation of the GPRS system, first is that the panel no longer uses the telephone line to transmit and then the client will be happy because he will no longer have to assume this cost.
If the number of customers grows, the ECM does not have to buy another receiver but simply needs to gradually increase its bandwidth.
GPRS vs IP Monitoring
Practically at the same time as the appearance of GPRS, IP monitoring also made its debut , which presents its own virtues; however, the fact that these two revolutionary technologies emerged almost at the same time, created a conjunctural moment in the industry, where many directors of monitoring centers entered a crossroads to know which of the two technologies they should migrate to.
Before putting together a discussion we will have to take into account that both technologies are efficient, the two technologies have their defects and virtues, however the main contribution of GPRS is that it does not use cables, while IP monitoring, at least the one that is now being implemented by ADSL, continues to present the problem of cable.
Pablo Bertucelli believes that "in the case of alarms for banks and large companies, which have secure, well-managed internet connections, the IP monitoring option is a very good choice", however, he observes that he does not see great advantages and believes that the technologies are complementary and that one option will be better for some customers and the other better for others.
In the case of monitoring through ADSL or broadband in homes that already have access and they are the ones who pay for the connection, there will surely be a lower monthly cost for the ECM; the problem is that the penetration of ADSL in Latin America, although it has had significant growth in recent years, still has no coverage, on the other hand, GSM is practically everywhere, this according to the observations of experts.
For his part, Berenguel observes that due to his experience, Latin America has more confidence in cell phone operators than in communications over IP; he also thinks that for the ECM it is much easier to work with GPRS because the configuration is much simpler than that of IP, this because for the transmission through IP you need to know a little more about networks, in everything that has to do with the router and with the configuration of the output of the events to the central. "The monitoring centers in this area are not so trained and it is costing them a little work, on the GPRS side you do not need so much knowledge," he clarified.
Berenguel agrees with Bertucelli that one of the main points that GPRS has in favor is that it has a lot of coverage, because cell phone carriers have a very advanced infrastructure, however, in the future the expert thinks that wimax technology will be much better, because "very aggressive plans will be handled in relation to the offer of cellular communication companies, In addition, the cost of infrastructure will not be as high as that of cellular communication, for example in the case of cell phone communication towers that are more expensive than those that will be needed to make wimax-type links, "he said.
"After 35 years of working through a telephone line, everyone is trying to migrate to what wireless communication is, in relation to this, really, large companies tend to migrate to IP because they have extensive networks; but for the mass market GPRS is more accepted and that is what the market has shown us; initially in our company we thought that IP was what people were going to buy, and surprise, we have seen a trend towards the purchase of GPRS, "said the Mexican expert.
Also for Bertucelli "the alarm monitoring market is turning towards GPRS, for costs, for greater security in communications, better level of service and for the possibility of adding new applications".
The disadvantage in GPRS monitoring is the courier, because there you are depending on a third party, however the same thing happens with the physical pair if there is no sabotage, but there is a failure by the same owner of the service, the events would not reach the central. The same goes for IP communication.
According to some experts, the main advantage of IP over GPRS is that although GPRS communication is done every few seconds, the advantage of IP allows you to be online all the time.
Market trends and growth
For now we could say that both technologies will coexist for several years, finally the end user will be the one who decides that it best suits their demands and their pocket.
However, and due to the absence of statistics on the subject, to get an idea of what is happening with the migration to GPRS or IP it will be necessary that we bring up the statistical concept of sampling with the information provided by the experts. According to your sales volumes and trade projections we can generalize to all of Latin America and what is happening in Argentina and Mexico. I highlight the important fact that both professionals have agreed in their assessments.
In the case of the Mexican, José Luis Berenguel, of LPL Development company that sells equipment for work with IP technology and also GPRS, tells us the following: "initially when we started working we had many expectations in the IP market, but really the market has turned us around, what is sold more is gprs technology, based on this growth expectations are around 30-40% for this year."
And he goes on to say" I estimate that growth trends are going relatively slowly because they are new technologies, so the general public still does not have much confidence; I estimate that the percentage, from three years ago until today, has more or less increased from 20 to 30% per year, in terms of monitoring centers that are implementing GPRS technology. In these three years we estimate that an annual average of about 20,22 million dollars has been handled, and sales are more or less 80% GPRS and 20% TCP/IP."
In addition to this, Berenguel also told us "we have implemented a technology that we call dual, in the same intarface you have IP communication, GPRS and via telephone, although it is the most expensive technology is one of the sold". The fact that it is the best seller should not be surprising, because as the experts mentioned, each technology may be the right one for one or another client, then it would seem that these equipment that come with the option of working in both ways would be a very good solution, several manufacturing companies offer all kinds of devices with these qualities.
To finish with the issue of trends, in the case of Argentino, Bertucelli of RighKey said the following: "I do not know if today it is simple to measure it in percentages, because it is still a growing technology, but in terms of new facilities I believe that at least a third of the new alarms that are sold are already installed with a GPRS communicator. This at least in Argentina, in other countries I imagine the rate will be similar."
"GPRS is now a reality, there are already thousands of customers in different countries connected with this technology. With the decline of TDMA and AMPS services, all these facilities are migrated to GSM, mostly GPRS, accelerating the adoption rate of the new technology. In addition, when monitoring companies see the advantages of GPRS, they also begin to want to connect customers who still transmit over the phone line. I'm not sure how long, maybe there are facilities that will continue to report by telephone line much longer, but companies that want to guarantee communications from each client to their ECM, will continue to adopt GPRS as their main solution for the next few years, "said Pablo Bertucelli.
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