Electronic Alarms and Home Security Devices - HELP!!! Ademco Lynx, Comcast VOIP, and NextAlarm monitoring

I have an Ademco Lynx that came with the house I bought, and I switched to NextAlarm monitoring over two years ago, being somewhat technically savvy (I work in I.T. as a database guy); I'd done some Internet research and found the installer code for the Ademco panel, set up my zones, got the Ademco panel to talk to NextAlarm's monitoring using the Contact ID format. All has been well for nearly two years. My problem is, I just dumped the standard phone line in interest of economizing; my house has only voice over IP (VOIP) and two cell phones now. (I'm aware of the 911 issues, but my ISP-- Comcast-- has been extremely reliable in my area, I do have the cell phones from two different providers, and I keep battery backup on the Comcast router. The issue is in getting my Ademco Lynx panel to work with broadband Internet. I purchased an ABN Adapter from NextAlarm and hooked it up to my Comcast router, and ran the phone jack side of the ABN adapter to the Ademco panel. Ran tests by triggering alarms while the monitoring service was placed in test mode, and it works as expected as far as communicating with NextAlarm is concerned- I can trigger faults, and they are reliably reported to NextAlarm's monitoring service.

The problem is this: after a while, the Ademco panel faults into an 'FC' code and beeps every so often. The Ademco installer manual (which I found on the web) tells me that FC is a communications failure. Now, the Ademco is obviously successful at reporting to NextAlarm monitoring by way of the ABN adapter and my broadband internet connection; it just somehow appears that the Ademco panel thinks it is not able to communicate with the monitoring company when in actuality it is. I'd seen some suggestions on this and other forums to change the method of reporting, but I tried all of the other choices one by one, and only the Contact ID method successfully reports faults to NextAlarm. I'd also tried blowing away the numbers in the Primary and Secondary contact fields for the monitoring service, but when I do that, the Ademco no longer reports to NextAlarm monitoring. Now I'm thinking that the Ademco needs to see some kind of voltage across the tip and ring connections to make it think there's a phone line out there when there isn't, but I'm loathe to try to fake one (even with my knowledge of high-school electonics) because I'm sure if I put 48 volts across the red and green of the phone line, I'd probably smoke the Next Alarm ABN Adapter, the Comcast Digital Voice modem, the fax modem inside my Windows Server, and god knows what else. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks!!!

I'm not sure so take this for what it's worth. I investigated using the ABN but haven't yet. I thought I read somewheres that sometimes you have to put a single number (ie: 1) in the primary number field but I can't find that info right now. It can't hurt. :)

Hey thanks for the suggestion, I tried it with no success so the search for a solution goes on, but as you said, it was worth a try.

Sorry it didn't work. As a temporary measure until you can find a solution how about going into programming, (I THINK it's *92, please confirm that) and disable phone line monitoring.:)

I would send an email to NextAlarm since it seems the ABN is at fault here.

As a temporary measure you might try disabling the periodic test report (*51), since it sounds like that's the only thing that is failing.

other things to try:
put 2 pauses at the beginning of primary number (#13 #13) then number.
Eliminate the secondary phone and acct. numbers for now
Make sure in split dual reporting value is between 0 and 5
make sure Lrr/Ip is set to 0

I don't have a manual so I can't give you the addresses. I don't think it is a voltage issue though I believe that would show as a check 103

PS. I use the abn's quite often with Comcast the only problem I have had is sometimes I have to reverse the Polarity on the house side. I have only had to do this on the newer versions with phone control and speaker phone

Yes I already have that disabled by setting it to zero, thanks

:D Problem Solved :D

Turns out that for all of my suspecting the cause to be in the mechanics of software, it was something much more mundane- the length of the phone cord (standard POTS 4-conductor copper) from the Next Alarm ABN Adapter to the Ademco panel. Last year, I'd relocated the Ademco panel to the wall beside my upstairs bedroom, and had a phone line running through floor joists and behind a living room baseboard for a total distance of about 25 feet. Worked just fine with conventional TELCO service, but not over broadband. Last night I moved the ABN Adapter upstairs, near the Ademco panel, and let the ABN Adapter's Ethernet cable run the 25 feet or so back to the cable modem. Problem solved. (I guess the moral here is do NOT run an Admco panel's phone signal through 25 feet of copper wire and expect it to come out one end the sake way it wennt in the other.)