Hi

 

So ADT have decided to increase our monthly contract price to nearly £50 per month. It is for a 4 bed house with a Galaxy-2 (I think) system with Redcare dualcom.

 

After paying around £1,500 for the mostly wireless system around 5 years ago the monthly price seems to have gone up and up so I'm considering my options.

 

I like the concept of the dual monitoring over pstn and gsm and the police response but I do wonder if there is a better way to pay for the monitoring centre because my guess would be that most of that £50 is going into ADT's bottom line and only a small part (£15 or £20 per month?) going to the monitoring centre.

 

So ideally, we'd carry on with similar tech but paying for the monitoring only. However, I do wonder if all the new types of typically ip based security devices entering the market might be another option. Right now my feeling is they are inferior but the gap might be closing.

 

Right now, it seems the only thing that can be semi-directly linked to a police response is the traditional intruder alarm market so happy to continue knowing e.g. the panic button might do a lot more than send me text (!!) but wondering how I can reduce this huge bill of £600 pa !

 

Thanks in advance for any help or info.

Edited December 4, 201510 yr by homeowner1234

Well have you tried another local firm?

Contact a local firm, look for a SSAIB or NSI approved company.

What area are you in? Maybe there's a member here who can help.

But its not just monitoring you are paying for. I'm assuming you have a support and maintenance contract as well as your Redcare fees?

I'm sure if you speak to the local service manager he'll reduce the amount once you explain you are considering going elsewhere.

Well I don't know if its red gsm then its about tight, if its Dualcom grade 2 then its a little steep.

Agreed as above tbh

The monitoring station is ADT so there is no way of cutting out the middle man, you cant go directly to an independent ARC either they will only deal with trade, and even so you would need someone to program your signalling unit. I would advise before you do anything rash that you read the small print in your contract carefully, you may find that you dont own the control panel and changing companies could end up costing as much as you save, as norm says it is worth going back to ADT saying that you are thinking of moving, this works with Virgin and BT so I see no reason why it should not work with ADT.

 

I used to hate ADT with a passion, but as the years have gone on and chatting with the ADT chaps on here I have a lot of respect for them, its not them doing it wrong its everyone else, providing quality security with qualified staff costs money and their charges reflect this 

I also agree with many comments above.

Please also consider the cost of switching companies.

 

It will be unlikely you will be able to transfer the monitoring so you will have the cost of new kit and connection charges.

Also other companies maybe cheaper but make sure you consider what's included.

Parts, servicing, call outs, out of hours are they extra or included. Will the new signalling be to the same Grade as the out going.

 

I think for Redcare GSM it sounds about right depending on location?

Also Redcare have just announced a price increase, hence your price increase