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| Bosch’s DX4020 modules help improve alarm reporting capabilities for the college |
Davidson College
Davidson College is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,700 students. Since its establishment in 1837, it has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. It is located north of Charlotte, North Carolina in the town of Davidson. This historic 450-acre campus is an excellent choice for the student who seeks a vigorous undergraduate education in a residential environment.
Business objective:
To protect the safety of its students, faculty and staff living and working on campus, the IT department at Davidson College has an extensive system of life safety and security equipment installed throughout the various buildings. This system previously required 140 dedicated phone lines to communicate with a central monitoring station. The IT staff needed to reduce recurring operating costs for the system.
Solution:
With Bosch IP communications modules, the college can continue to use their existing fire and intrusion control panels, while taking advantage of the cost savings and other benefits achieved with communications to the central station via an Internet connection.
More than 70 fire alarm systems from a variety of manufacturers protect the residence hall, classroom and administrative buildings throughout campus. All of these systems now communicate to the central station using Conettix C900V2 Dialer Capture Ethernet Modules. The modules work equally well with the college's Bosch D6412 Control Panels as they do with the installed panels from other manufacturers.
Administrative buildings are also protected by Bosch G Series Control Panels and Conettix DX4020 Network Interface Modules, which communicate intrusion alarms via Ethernet connections. The Conettix DX4020 modules transmit more detailed alarm information to the central monitoring station.
The DX4020 modules have helped improve alarm reporting capabilities for the college. The central station can now tell the local authorities the exact location in a building where motion was detected or windows or doors were forced open by an unauthorised individual.
With the new modules installed, the IT department has been able to eliminate the phone lines used for alarm communications.
Result:
Davidson College's IT department has calculated that the new equipment will result in an impressive return on investment.
"By eliminating the expense of the phone lines, we are experiencing a 50 percent cost savings now and expect that number to increase to 75 percent in the near future," said Brent Babb, project manager, Davidson College.
On top of the cost savings, the alarm communications from the college to the central station are now received faster than those previously transmitted via a phone line, which in turn improves the central station's response time.
