Re: CS start up

[Nomen Nescio <nobody@xxxxxxxxx>]

Crash Gordon said:

>At least.
>And not to mention keeping it staffed...nightmare for smallco.

I agree.  You will not believe how fast you can burn through money building
a central station, but it's the operating costs (and continuing headaches)
that will really hurt a small company.  Even 5,000 accounts is pretty
minimal:  instead of puttimg profit in your pockets, those dollars will go
towards supporting your central station.

It's good to think about why you would want your own central station.  Back
in the old days, before there were monitoring companies, nearly all central
stations were owned by installing companies who were usually reluctant to
sell their services to other alarm companies.  Those companies, in turn,
were not comfortable having a competitor monitor their systems.  So,
opening your own central station was almost a necessity if you wanted to
compete in the central station business.

That's obviously no longer the case.  What benefits does an alarm company
receive by operating its own central station?  Mostly, it's bragging
rights: telling customers (and friends in the industry) that you operate
your very own central station, located right here in town:  "Come on down
and we'll show it to you!"   Looking at it in terms of dollars and cents,
it's rarely a good idea to do it yourself.

- badenov