electrorookie

I am sort of a rookie in electronics - hope I did not miss something obvious

The short story - I REALLY want to disconnect my local phone service. The only thing I use it for is for my monitored house alarm. Kind of expensive @ $40 / month. I use cell for everything else practically.

What I would like to do:

1. Kill the local phone line - discountine the service
2. Buy a pre-paid cell phone and always keep it on charge with UPS power
3. Hook the alarm so if there is a problem - it can use the cell hone to call the monitoring company

This, #3 is what I dunno how to do. Maybe I am using wrong terms to Google this, but all I am coming up with is dialers that can call the cell phone using the land line - not what I want...

Thanks for any suggestions!

electrorookie

Well, turns out I answered my own question... after searching more and more...

http://www.alarms-r-us.com/catalog/p...oducts_id=1048

plot

:shock:

holy... looks expensive. make sure you are in the coverage area with that... as in one of the "metro areas in the USA"... also, sounds like there's a monthly fee for that service or something, and it doesn't say if it will contact your cell phone -- just some automated service that you gotta call in or something. (I'd imagine it will contact your cell though). No idea... let us know how it works out.

B-o-b

Wow- I just saw sumth'n last nite on the news bout 1 of these gadgets. It's a device called Dock-n-Talk (made by PhoneLabs) and it connects yer cell phone to a ordinary corded telephone. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work with yer alarm system too. Here's the web sites so U can see it:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/ces200415.htm
http://phonelabs.com/universal_cell_...ocking_sta.htm

They say it allows you to dock your cell phone and use your normal corded or cordless phones to make and receive your cell phone calls. Effectively turns your wireless service into "wired" service while docked. Hopefully, this'll give U a cost-effective alternative.

Cheerz!

BOB