Special report: ESX 2010 in Pittsburgh

I just flew back in from ESX 2010 in Pittsburgh, Penn., and, wow, are my arms tired. And my feet are sore. And my brain is full. And my notebook is loaded with new contacts and storage ideas we'll be bringing to you, our SIW readers.

This is the third Electronic Security Expo I have attended (it's only the third time this annual event has been held) and this has to have been the best one yet. Owned by the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA) and the Electronic Security Association (ESA, formerly the NBFAA), the show brings in some of the top security installing firms and central stations from around the nation along with product vendors, technicians and anyone else who wants to be educated and apprised of the latest trends in technology in this industry.

One of the biggest topics this year was about communications protocols. The death of POTS was the big topic. Phone carriers have been indicating that traditional landline phone systems are rapidly becoming a thing of the past and something they may discontinue in the next decade. That's huge news to our industry, which has relied upon copper wires to send alarm signals for years. The equipment mounted on the walls often depends on those phone lines and AHJs have sometimes been reluctant to open up to new technologies for communicating alarm signals.

But there are a lot of options. There have been SMS communicators, GSM cellular radios, direct fiber optic connections, MESH networks, private radio systems, managed facility voice networks (MFVNs) and of course the Internet or other IP pathways. At a closing session, speakers nodded that Google may become the next AT&T. No longer content to be a search engine, Google is trying to connect entire towns with fiber optic ISP connections. Others at the expo are saying GSM will be dead in five years. That's simply not the case, say others, who note that carriers are considering backwards compatibility and will support GSM cellular devices as long as they have the availability of frequencies. It's not like an AMPS sunset, they say, despite erroneous media claims to the contrary.

Dealers say they're wrestling with AHJs when connecting fire systems via IP networks. Some in our industry are saying that these newer communication protocols are actually better than POTS lines, which had always been assumed to be the gold standard in terms of connecting life safety systems to monitoring centers. That simply isn't the case anymore. Others noted that POTS hasn't really existed for years -- that what we call POTS is running over carriers' MFVNs in most cases already. But don't confuse that with services like Vonage, VoiceWing and CallVantage -- which most in the industry say are predictably unreliable for communicating vital alarm signals when it's a case of life and death.