If you have a home alarm system that is monitored through a cell-phone system, you may not be getting the monitoring that you are paying for.  You could be paying money for nothing and leaving your home unprotected at the same time.  The reason is that your system likely runs on a discontinued cellular network standard called “2g”.  This is an issue that alarm companies have known about since at least 2015.

Apparently, up to 90% of home alarm systems installed before 2015 that used cell service were based on “2g” technology. In December 2016, some cellular telephone companies, including AT&T largely discontinued “2g” service to monitoring companies. In the summer of 2016, ADT reported that it sent a letter out to its customers offering to convert their system to 3g/4g cell capability at no charge, but it has been brought to our attention that not all customers received notice. Many customers either switched monitoring companies or ADT assigned monitoring contracts to third party companies.

The bottom line is that if you have an older, “2g” cell phone modem in your alarm system, and you haven’t upgraded it, there is a strong possibility that your alarm system has not been monitored since December 2016. I think that companies holding monitoring contracts should be held to a pro-active standard, and if they are still collecting monitoring money from customers who haven’t upgraded, they need to refund the money to the customers.  

If that weren’t bad enough, there are reports that the 2g-3g changeover has resulted in a new scam of companies posing as the original monitoring company calling customers and promising free upgrades, but instead signing the customer up for long-term monitoring contracts at high rates.   Senior citizens are often targeted by home security scammers.

If you have an issue relating to the changeover to 3g-4g, please send me an email to hoferlawindy at gmail.com.  There should be a contact link at the top of the page.