NextAlarm Monitoring Services, Inc., team of alarm industry experts with over 50 years of collective experience, revealed that the company was issued the U.S. patent 7,734,020. The patent covers the company’s distinctive approach of transmitting alarm signals by the use of a dedicated Voice over IP (VoIP) network. This approach is the only broadly available approach today to retrofit present telephone-based alarm or medical alert systems to communicate over the Internet. It is also the only approach that allows two-way voice communications over IP and digital alarm signals.

Bryan Field-Elliot, the chief technology officer of NextAlarm Monitoring Services, Inc., said that even though there are other technologies out there that exist for monitoring alarm systems over the Internet, NextAlarm’s technology is different because it was developed from the ground up to work with existing, legacy systems.

The company’s solutions only need the addition of a broadband adapter, not the other solutions that need whole new security or medical alert systems to be installed. The two-way voice feature is not available with other IP monitoring solutions. With NextAlarm’s VoIPAlarm dealer program, anyone can keep their two-way voice system and still have money with a digital phone service. They can even cancel their home phone.

With two-way voice, a monitoring station operation can communicate with the subscriber by using a speaker and microphone that’s built into the keypad of the alarm system. The two-way voice feature is vital in medical alert systems where the subscriber may not be able to get to a telephone physically. These medical systems called as The Personal Emergency Response System, or PERS, are a fast growing division of the alarm industry.

By using NextAlarm’s patented technologies from legacy alarm panels or PERS devices, VoIPAlarm enables alarm companies or monitoring stations to receive signal over IP. VoIPAlarm also has NextView IP video cameras, electronic notifications of alarm events, and a branded customer portal that enables end users to optimize the use of the technology.

VoIP technology is becoming very popular but not all service providers can deliver the desired quality. Recently, a report revealed how AT&T's VoIP Phone Service had a bad day in the last week of May.

By Anuradha Shukla.