C3 compatibility with Canadian wireless carrier

[edselrt]

I am having issues with C3 using Rogers sim card. It dials out when there is an alarm with no problem. The issue i am having is when i am trying to call the omnipro panel. Sometimes it doesn't accept my code. I am just hearing beep. Sometimes when i am able to get in to the menus, i cant select any option. Most of the time, it doesn't recognize numbers 3 and 0. i had to press 3 so many times before it will work. If i want to arm the system i could not do it because it won't recognize 3.
After three calls to Hai tech support, I was told that C3 is having issues with Canadian carrier. They should not be selling this unit in Canada in the first place.
Since the site is under construction, the owner cannot get a regular phoneline yet.hence i am stuck with using Gsm for now.
So, do you know of any gsm communicator that will work just like The C3 and compatible with Canadian Wireless (Rogers)?

 

[apostolakisl]

I don't think it is entirely the c3 unit, I think it is a combination of the c3 and the omnipro. I doubt it is your wireless carrier. When I used to use the c3 for my home phone, I would call into various business's and have to do those anoying "press 1 for this, press 2 for that" menus. Sometimes it worked, somtimes it didn't. Also, some alarm monitoring co's won't understand the touch tone via C3 while others will. For example Watchlight always works, but Next Alarm usually does not.

So, in short, I think the c3 mildly degrades the quality of the dtmf (touchtone) such that some pieces of equipment struggle or fail to recognize it. Your omnipro is probably marginal. My Elk doesn't have trouble.

Whoever is monitoring your alarm appearantly has equipment that is good or you would be failing on the outbound calls.

As a workaround, and not knowing anything about omnipro, perhaps you could write a program that has the omnipro arm/disarm useing only the numbers that work. For example, maybe there is some other phone function that does something else, like turn an output on, that you could have signal an arming state.

 

[edselrt]

I don't think it is entirely the c3 unit, I think it is a combination of the c3 and the omnipro. I doubt it is your wireless carrier. When I used to use the c3 for my home phone, I would call into various business's and have to do those anoying "press 1 for this, press 2 for that" menus. Sometimes it worked, somtimes it didn't. Also, some alarm monitoring co's won't understand the touch tone via C3 while others will. For example Watchlight always works, but Next Alarm usually does not.

So, in short, I think the c3 mildly degrades the quality of the dtmf (touchtone) such that some pieces of equipment struggle or fail to recognize it. Your omnipro is probably marginal. My Elk doesn't have trouble.

Whoever is monitoring your alarm appearantly has equipment that is good or you would be failing on the outbound calls.

As a workaround, and not knowing anything about omnipro, perhaps you could write a program that has the omnipro arm/disarm useing only the numbers that work. For example, maybe there is some other phone function that does something else, like turn an output on, that you could have signal an arming state.

Thanks for your reply. I can do the workaround but right now it seems that there is no specific keys that work.
I did some more testing by connecting the C3 to my own panel using a different sim card(same network) and got the same result. I don't have issue controlling omnipro from my house phone.
Now, I am looking at Risco Rokonet universal GSM as a potential replacement to C3. I have used Rokonet PIR's before but not their GSM communicators. Anyone here have experience with this unit?
I hope this is not OEM of HAI C3.

 

[dwalterm]

Lou,
Can you give me some more details about your use of the C3 and Nextalarm? I use them and have been thinking about the C3.

 

[apostolakisl]

Lou,
Can you give me some more details about your use of the C3 and Nextalarm? I use them and have been thinking about the C3.

It has been effortless. It is absolutely the same as a POTS line. The Elk setup is the same and the NextAlarm setup is the same. It is my Elk's only method of reporting and it has never failed. I have had it about 1.5 years now. When it comes there is almost nothing to setup. Setting it up includes installing the battery, the gsm card, plugging in the antenna, and pluggin in the power. It has 2 phone jacks. One goes to your security panel. The other goes to your pots line (if you have one). The unit will use the pots if available, if it is not available, it will use the cellular.

The unit is about the size of router, it runs on 12v dc, it has a built in nicad battery for power failure, it accepts t-mobile and att gsm cards in the US. I use the $100 pre-paid from ATT which has 12mos before the minutes expire. Originally I had it as an extra line with my family ATT plan for $10/mo extra but I switched to Sprint. I haven't checked to see how many minutes we have used. I probably should do that sometime since it has been 6 months since switching to pre-paid.

 

[edselrt]

So i did two more installs using C3 cellular communicator second gen (part number 70A00-2). This communicator is worse than the first version. The first site is connected to Omni pro II while the second site is using omni iie. Both sites are using Rogers GSM sim.

If you go back to my first post, I had a problem with some numbers not being recognized by the panel. This time, both sites doesn't even let me go to the voice menu. Whenever I call the panel, it answers and just ignore the codes that i am entering. I can hear the beeps and hangs up after about three seconds. It dials out when there is an alarm but it just won't let me go to the voice menu.

I dialled some business numbers using the C3 and it worked fine. I was able to get to the voice menus with no problem.

 

[apostolakisl]

HAI has real customer support with real people who answer the phone. I would call them seeing as both your communicator and your device being communicated are both HAI products.

I assume the omnipro is using dtmf (touchtone) as its controlling mechanism. Is it giving you any trouble calling central station using dtmf reporting?

 

[Anthony A.]

Any alternative dialers for canadians using rogers gsm?

 

[Del91574]

While way late to the ballgame, it may have an issue relating to the DTMF tone length on the host cellular phone that is dialing into the C3, since the HAI is dialing out fine, with the issue only being dialing in, that would lead me to believe this.

 

[Anthony A.]

Good to know. That seems quite plausable and may be the case. What about an uplink unit? Any recommendations which one is best and would setup be just as easy as the C3 with HAI omnipro2?

 

[Anthony A.]

Looks like there hasnt been any fixes for the C3 in Canada. What are my other options? Will uplink work with OP2? My provider is also Rogers and monitoring is by ADT.