Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/31496
12 NEWS www.securitysystemsnews.com FEBRUARY 2011 SECURITY SYSTEMS NEWS FALSE ALARM ORDINANCE WATCH SPANISH FORT, ALA. A Jan. 7 story from the Press- Register reports the Spanish Fort City Council has approved a measure aimed at curbing fire and security alarm calls through fines or even jail time. An alarm system user will be allowed two false alarms per calendar year, with officials issuing warning citations for the infractions. Third and subsequent false alarms within that same year will result in a municipal offense ticket. If found guilty, the user would face a fine of $50 to $500 and/or six months in jail. WICHITA, KAN A story from NBC affiliate KSN TV reports the Wichita City Council on Dec. 21 revised an ordinance on false security alarm fees. In August, alarm owners were required to pay an annual $25 registration fee. But council members have now decided to waive that fee for owners who don’t have a false alarm in the previ- ous year. The change came about based on community feedback. KNOXVILLE, TENN. A Dec. 19 story from Knoxnews.com reports Knoxville residents will have to pay a $30 annual registration fee for their alarms if they fail to register by the beginning of 2011. In coming years, the annual fee will depend on the number of false alarms that have sent police or firefighters to residents’ homes or businesses. Governmental entities also will be affected. The fee schedule is as fol- lows: zero false alarms: zero fee; One false alarm: $10 fee; two false alarms: $20 fee; three or more false alarms: $30. Currently, there is a $25 fine for having three false alarms during a 12-month period. SSN Roundtable Continued from page 11 metric used by any good project manager and one that is easily sellable to the end user. Steve: I don’t think IP was any more or less affected than any other part of the security industry. While spending may have slowed in the aggregate, those who bought, bought IP. Quite a few companies in our sector are now reporting 2010 growth rates of 30-35 percent or more, so the rebound seems well on its way. Bob: Everything has suffered. IP has been growing but that growth rate has slowed a bit. I expect that we’ll see more cus- tomers buy- ing IP prod- ucts going forward. On the flip side, you really do have to wonder how much longer vendors will want to support some of their legacy technology. They will want to obsolete products that are increasingly slow sellers. Paul B.: Of course, everything has been impacted by the econ- omy. The positive result of the down economy is it forced inte- grators and end users to really examine the benefits of analog vs. IP video rather than just take their old manufacturing partners’ word for it. When they did, they discovered IP is more competitive and offers a lot more flexibility in integration and expansion and scalability and ultimately, is what the end-users want. Jeremy: In the downturn we Dieter Kondek have seen IP grow for new instal- lations but slow for upgrades. When budgets are tight the goal is to leverage as much as pos- sible. With IP-based systems the data infrastructure can be utilized. Either in using exist- ing infrastructure or lowering install costs by having a con- tractor install the security cable with the data systems. Utilizing internal IT departments and their buying contracts can also help reduce costs for NVR, stor- age and network hardware. In today’s economy the practice of leveraging technology resources continues for new installations. ROUNDTABLE see page 14