BT Digital Voice "upgrade" and house alarm system

markymark68

BT have "upgraded" to Digital Voice in my area in March this year. My house alarm has the facility that should it activate, it would dial my mobile phone and tell me the house alarm had activated and even what zone the alarm activated on.

I have been now told that with the digital upgrade although the alarm will still sound outside the house, I will no longer get the phone call as this was via the old landline infrastructure.
I approached my alarm company and they have quoted £480 to fit new equipment to give me the same facility when the alarm activates. 

There has been mention of an adapter of some description that I can purchase to give me this facility back but the alarm company seems not to be willing to give me the details of the ones they have been fitting and BT did not know anything about.

Does anyone know anything about this elusive adaptor ?

Neil_Jones

If your alarm connected to the phone line via a normal 431A/631A (ie a rectangular plug) like this:

then this link might be of interest:

https://community.bt.com/t5/Archive-Staging/Problem-with-Digital-Voice-Adapter-and-Digital-Voice/m-p/2219655#M1251119

If your alarm has been wired in through the back of the master socket socket as an extension, the above may still help.  Same as if its running on an extension to the socket.

Note that IIRC you will not get a number if the alarm calls you, it may come up as Private/Withheld number.  Your phone spam/junk call settings may interfere with that.  Also note that if it waits for a dial tone before it dials, and you have a 1571 message waiting or some other thing that requires your attention, there may be no call.  This may be dialler dependent and may not work with an adapter anyway but in theory if analogue phones can work okay that should do too.

If your alarm has been wired to the phone in any other way then, well only you can answer the question as to what happens next.  There is provision for alarms to be monitored over the mobile phone network, though if that's what your company has already suggested it may be your only option.