Ats Levels And Failure Reporting Times

[alterEGO]

if it was that bad id be more concerned with replacing them. After all its your risk and your insurance that would pay if the signal didnt arrive.

i know, and i am concerned. However i'm not sure about GPRS full stop.

This is the first 'lost' signal i know of on our systems, but i have have worried this may happen due to the **** about way they work.

We will see, but like i said, i think this may be down to how they are all using GPRS.

I might have to go with the old red gsm, hate the pissing about with lines though.

ps: this 'lost' signal will have happened to others on here, you may just be unaware. eg no alarm = no key holder call and no ARC report and alot of people have intruder set as user reset and only have confirmed on anti/engineer reset.

[jb-eye]

What Signalling?

I suppose the 'signal is low'?

It our friends at DualCom. To be fair thats a days events the system has been in for over 2 years with few problems. Im guessing that the local mast is down. Problem is nowhere is anyone informed!!

TBH GPRS fail is that common across all sites ARC have changed their policy for dealing with them. Some alarm Co, Aaron for example has had to adopt a policy of log only or pssin customer off. Hes not alone, my ARC tells me its a dangerous move that has become the norm for some companies which basically means the installed product is a Digi with a reasonable chance of notifying the ARC on the GPRS path as it on more than off.

Ever had a customer ring at daft O'clock to say they have been called out and on arrival nothing is wrong?

[james.wilson]

So haw many people have got dualcoms gprs fail on log only?

[jb-eye]

So haw many people have got dualcoms gprs fail on log only?

A poll would be good. Im guessing we have at least 2 sites

[alterEGO]

James, the point is they may not know. I only noticed by chance that they were all on log only, i was told by our ARC they were asked to do this(guess who asked them), as i said, we didn't ask them to.

It seems their is some kind of procedure dependant on how long it has been down. Some of our customers still get a call, but thats down to the panel sending a fault signal.

[james.wilson]

i assume dualcom did.

but what the hell are the arc doing taking an instruction that affects your liability from anyone but you?

[alterEGO]

i assume dualcom did.

but what the hell are the arc doing taking an instruction that affects your liability from anyone but you?

i'm not sure, but lets just say it seems to be accross the board, i'm not so sure it is just our ARC as such. Its my first job for the new year anyway, one way or another i need to get rid of these GPRS faults.

[jimcarter]

Just going back to the reporting of low signal as a potential issue. Signal is not a good indicator (on it's own) of the ability to deliver a message. For instance, our equipment will show a signal indication of 0 through to 10, with 0 being the minimum.

We are often asked, what minimum would you recommend, and it's very difficult to advise correctly. What you have to look at is whether you can deliver a message from the device to the receiver successfully, which is far more important the the actual signal strength indication itself.

In Alarm signalling terms, this is an active poll. The more frequently you poll the more accurate your statistical analysis of the circuit becomes. The flip side of this, is the more you poll, the more bandwidth you use and the higher the cost of the service. But, you have to check both signal, and cicuit availability regulary.

Throughout our estate of SPTs we consistantly see some sites that have a minimul signal of 2, signalling 24/7 without a problem, where as others with a 6 or above an have very poor availability.

Some systems monitoring radio circuits rely very heavily on signal strength and network registration as an indication of service, with few active polls across the network. To signal an alarm to an ARC indicating "Low Signal" is of little or no use to an installer if you cannot back-up with accurate availability statistics. If you can, you can begin to decide what is the best remedial action for your site. Take the scenario in the para above, the circuit would be operating fine at this strength, but the message at the ARC would be "low signal". It is likely therefore that the installer would install an antenna improvement unecessarily, where as his real issue is with the other site with "good" signal.

Better network statistics are gained through high polling rates, and these are associated with the higher grades of signalling. So QED, the higher the Grade, the more accurate you network diagnostics will be.

Jim

[james.wilson]

How do we get a green for yes, red for no type indication then?

[jimcarter]

I guess you mean how do you know it's going to be ok at install from the signal indication alone? I don't think you can be that specific, but you can make an educated guess during install.

The majority of cases it will be fine, but the signal strength is just a guide and an indication of service availability. It's only time that will tell. The trick is to be able to identify the remedial action, if any is required, after the install.

My Support will advise on install that if the signal is, say 2, the installing engineer needs to be aware that this may not be sufficient and an alternate antenna, siting of the kit etc may be required. However, if during the installation process there are no drops in service of the GPRS, it is quite likely fair, to leave as is.

The majority of re-visits are service delivery problems on the radio path, and what I'm attempting to show is that "poor signal strength" is not the whole story, or cause. A site can have great signal but bad service.