NEW YORK-To catch a thief, at least two companies are turning to wireless technology.
The first out of the box is Aeris.net, San Jose, Calif., which provides back-up wireless messaging for residential alarm systems when the wireline connection is severed.
The company’s MicroBurst technology enables short feeds of packet data to be transmitted over control channels of Interim Standard-41C cellular networks. The data is delivered via Signaling System 7 to the Aeris.net central hub facility, which identifies the service provider and routes the information for delivery over an Internet, dial-up or dedicated connectivity link. The end user receives notification over cellular phone, pager, Web page or e-mail.
Aeris.net announced an agreement July 24 with Paradigm4, Hartford, Conn., and Sentrol-Caddx, the Tualatin, Ore.-based division of Interlogix Inc., to deploy MicroBurst.
Sentrol-Caddx will embed MicroBurst into its SkyBox units, which are designed to work with any standard security alarm control panel. When an alarm is triggered, signals will travel over the MicroBurst network to Paradigm4, a provider of outsourced wireless data solutions. Paradigm4 will interpret each signal and route the message to the appropriate safety or security monitoring station.
Aeris.net said it has contracts deploying MicroBurst in cellular service areas in the United States, Mexico and Canada. The technology already is in use for security and equipment monitoring, utility meter reading and vehicle position and condition reporting.
Down the road, Cellular Video Car Alarms Corp., Hagerstown, Md., plans to begin offering this fall two car theft deterrents that employ wireless technology.
The company placed an advertisement in the July 9 edition of The Journal News in Westchester County, N.Y., for a planned private placement of common stock. According to the Web site listed in the ad, the company’s proposed service launch “is aligned with the testing and availability of IMT 2000 high-speed packet data over TDMA, TDMA-EDGE, PCS and CDMA carrier network bandwidths at AT&T Wireless (Services Inc.) and Sprint PCS.”
Rich Blasi, an AT&T Wireless spokesman, and Kami Jowers, with Sprint PCS’ media relations department, said they are not familiar with the company.
A spokeswoman for Carl Robinson, director of investor relations for Cellular Video Car Alarms, said July 26 he would be available to discuss the company and its planned product in the fall or winter of this year.
The company plans to make available two kinds of products, which “closely resemble handheld cellular phones,” according to information the company posted on its Web site. The first, called a multipurpose wireless video alarm, “activates using motion sensor detection of an intruder’s entrance into a protected automobile.”
Once activated, the device automatically dials a preset wireless phone number and begins “transmission of video and sounds of the intruder to a live video monitor, Internet monitoring station, VCR or personal computer within one second of any unauthorized break-in.”
The second product, called the cellular phone video intruder alarm, adds a video terminal display option, “and is a proprietary improvement to the existing conventional cellular telephone,” the company said.
Cellular Video Car Alarms plans to offer these devices at an introductory retail price in the range of $199 to $299.
“The units also will have wide popularity for child-care parental remote observation and active remote surveillance to protect homes and personal property,” the company said.
Nokia Corp. has produced the end-user devices for this application, according to Cellular Video Car Alarms. Several other leading wireless device manufacturers have products in development: Motorola Inc., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., L.M. Ericsson and Sony Electronics Inc.
