Are you one of those Control Rooms that have recently been approached to jump into a long-term contract for your control room communications business? Yes? Well, we believe it may have something to do with just one of the features of the SG2 Security Gateway. As mentioned in our last newsletter, we have seen a rather dramatic increase in activity in “Sign here, promise to love you long time” contracts to lock in your communication business and take you off the market for some time. We can only guess the rush is on before you find out their redundancy solution is a dying market.

It kind of reminds me of a friend of a friend I once met, who sold his horse as fast as he could the moment he found out it had cancer. (True Story) Well, you may not yet be aware of the real value of the SG2 Security Gateway and its Australia wide supporting Network, but it appears some of our opposition certainly are. So what is the competition so scared of?

At a guess, they may realise that not only are the new technologies delivered by the SG2 extremely attractive to a control room but the control room communication redundancy functions via Intelipath are something never seen before and they simply cannot offer. Intelipath is exclusive service product only available to Surecall One3 1345 & 1300 users. This may pose a threat to other companies including the Telco’s providing communication services to the security industry. But, that’s not our problem, nor does it need to be yours.

One CMS after using the SG2 prototype for just a week quoted saying “I turned off 2 of my alarm receivers for 6 hours. This is unbelievable; you know this is an opposition killer”. We had not thought of it that way. All along we had been thinking from a technical point of view, but I can see their point. Another of our customers told us that by their calculations the SG2 would save them thousands a year on monitoring solutions that they’d usually have to get from many different suppliers. Our response was “That’s the whole idea”.

So, if you are one of those control rooms that has been approached for a long term contract offering nothing more than a long term for what’s already on the market or for what you have already been getting from them, can I suggest before you do, take an in-depth look into what you are getting and more importantly an in-depth look into the SG2 Communications Gateway.

The SG2 Security Gateway and what it means for you.
The security monitoring industry has come a long way since the days of trip wires and bells. The continuous growth of the industry attributes to the technology discoveries that are being made everyday all over the world and the many companies just like Suretek that are taking the time to mould these technologies into something beneficial for the security monitoring industry.

The SG2 is the first product and service of its kind and with International patents now pending; nothing will come close for some time. The SG2 by Suretek is innovative, has vast amounts of ability and smarts, representing not only the latest in monitoring technology and redundancy but scalability for future technology. Putting an SG2 in your control room enables you to offer your clients all the latest monitoring technologies such as Surepoll Wireless, Surepoll Industrial, Vision GPRS and other GPRS monitoring solutions. Plus GPS Asset tracking for vehicles and mobile asset monitoring as well as cost effective Securitel and IP Monitoring solutions, Bureau Link, PSTN Redundancy, Alarm Receiver Redundancy, Co Location functions and a whole lot more, without the security danger and hassles associated with connecting your control room to Wide Area Networks. Plus, one of the most powerful features of the SG2 is control room redundancy, simply never seen before with Suretek’s latest product solution - Intelipath. Plus, it doesn’t stop there; right now there are the many more solutions currently in development both in house and in conjunction with a number of manufacturers who see the SG2 as a mechanism to ride on the back of the Australia Wide Security Network to fast track the delivery of these new technologies to control rooms.

The SG2 doesn’t just give you access to a range of monitoring technologies, networks and services it gives you what every control room in Australia is lacking; complete communication redundancy. The SG2 is your insurance policy. It is almost impossible for your lines, receivers or control room to fall over when you have an SG2.

What started out as development into a complete control room communications redundancy solution has seen the SG2 grow into a solution to deliver many new technologies.

What if?
Those words ‘what If’ have started many a project or idea. It was those two words “What if” that started the concept for the SG2 many years ago long before GSM Backup solutions and long before it was even technically a possibility. However, as technology progressed the reality of such a solution became clear and the first steps in the development of the SG2 became a reality more than four years ago. With both Directors of Suretek having intensive experience in the security industry, and today being the largest supplier of control room solutions to the industry, this has set a clear vision to the needs of these control rooms.

The SG2 is more than a box that sits in a rack; it is a whole, vast, extensive, duplicated and redundant private network covering all of Australia, dedicated solely for the security industry. The SG2 was made possible by bringing in professional expertise of companies such as Cisco, SecEng Systems and the unequalled communications capabilities of the Telstra Network. Add to this our unique in house network and software engineers and you have all the right ingredients to create something very innovative, secure, reliable and most importantly affordable. So affordable you cannot afford to be without it.

Add to this the fact that the SG2 provides all this and more through one gateway via the Suretek secure, multiple-path, encrypted network and the SG2 is the most comprehensive product a control room could want, need or ever dream of owning. The SG2 is the key for new and future alarm monitoring technologies in Australia and around the globe. The SG2 is the ‘Complete Control Room Solution’ and there are a whole lot more products and services under development.

Did you know one SG2 can back up hundreds of alarm receivers?

So why hasn’t it been done before?
Manufacturers of new technologies realise that these new technologies in alarm transmission means new technologies in delivering these to a CMS. Unlike the many alarms all out there talking to any alarm receiver, new technologies mean proprietary systems and with new technologies security of the communications is a lot different than a one to one phone call as we have been accustomed too with digital diallers. The problem is if a CMS were to implement all these new systems from various manufacturers the infrastructure cost to a control room would be hundreds of thousands of dollars compared to the cost of a couple of alarm receivers. Hence the barrier manufacturers and suppliers are facing trying to get their solutions into the field and to market. Control rooms simply cannot afford to cater for all new technologies and if they can’t be monitored then the sales for these new technologies become stagnate.

Imagine if you had to buy a separate alarm receiver for each type of alarm panel. It’s not practical, let alone affordable. Yet with new technologies in their infant stages this is exactly the reality. That of course is until now. The SG2 Security Gateway and Suretek’s Australia wide private Security Network eliminates this.

When looking into new technologies there is a vast difference in the take up of the technology between a manufacturer and many control rooms. Manufacturers do their due diligence into the technology yet many control rooms just take the word of the high pressure salesman as gospel only to be out of pocket further down the track. If you are one of those control rooms I mean no offence, I will promise not to say I told you so out loud.

Manufacturers who have done their due diligence on the SG2 realise the power of this mechanism and are eager to utilise the Gateway of the Suretek Australia Wide Security Network to get their products to market and into every control room.

So much so, a couple of them wanted exclusive use of the network. This of course would defeat the whole purpose. But nice try anyway.

No longer are we going to manufacturers to sell the concept. They are now coming to us. We are currently working with a number of manufactures under Non Disclosure Agreements to implement their solutions through the SG2 Network. This includes Alarms, Access Control, Patrol Response and CCTV applications. The reality of this means a CMS may call us and say, “I have a bureau that wants to use this new ………..”. Our response will be as simple as either “You already have it” or “Hang on a minute I will enable it for you…. There, Done”!

The Suretek Security Network has seen over a million dollars invested into our clustered networks and management systems and another three million dollars invested into our facilities. This is a large investment, and even though whilst the roll out is in it’s infant stages it is already rewarding and seen by manufacturers and end users as the only way to group new technologies to deliver them efficiently, securely, with total redundancy to a control room and at the same time not only meeting but exceeding security and IT standards.

Surely someone in time would have thought of it, but as usual we did it first and long before it was even technically a possibility.

Benefits for CAMS Users
Although half of Australia’s Control Rooms are now using CAMS, to be fair we have designed the SG2 to operate with any Monitoring Software package.

However, there are some advanced features (and more coming) available to CAMS users (including CAMS Lite, CAMS Standard and CAMS Enterprise SQL editions). Control Rooms running CAMS will have the ability to view, add, move and change their network device (panel) settings directly from their control room in addition to utilising the many service offerings associated with the Suretek Data Centre co-location facility. Plus CAMS users via the SG2 will have access to Bureau Link. Bureau Link enables you to securely provide your bureaus real time access to their CAMS client details whilst you control the level of access rights for each bureau such as Viewing data, adding clients (let your bureau do all the data entry for you), editing and changing client details and full reporting functions with a complete audit log.

Thinking Co-Location? By utilising 2 x SG2 receivers in two locations any control room operating any control room software package can create their own co-location facility and have instant and transparent traffic redirection. In the past this meant the enormous cost of duplicating and maintaining your communications equipment in addition to the business debilitating down time during the emergency period. With the SG2 you place all that back in your pocket; all you need to create your own co-location facility is a computer, SG2 and a place to put it.

At Suretek we take responsibility and care of your redundancy from start to finish. Our secret in doing this has always been to start closer to the finish line. I guess that’s why our customers love us, whilst the competition passionately hates us.