United Security Alliance, Inc. has formed a strategic alliance with AMCEST Corporation to provide its customers with “World Class” Video and Alarm Monitoring Services.
AMCEST Corporation – A Technology Leader
Founded in 1975, AMCEST has been providing alarm and emergency monitoring services more than 35 years. The operation is listed with, and regulated by, Underwriters’ Laboratories for Protective Signaling (UL # S2299).
AMCEST Corporation has the proven experience and technical capacity to deliver high caliber emergency monitoring service. Of particular note is our unique safeguarding of communications to and from Amcest headquarters. Multiple fiber optic telephone lines, coming into and out of Amcest from diverse paths, are supported by two different long distance carriers. This ensures redundancy and precludes any one supplier, telephone company substation or physical cable from causing an interruption of service.
There are independent uninterruptable power supplies for the digital PBX, receiving equipment, TANDEM mainframe and PC LAN systems. This is in addition to the gas fed back-up generator which supports the total power requirements of the building in the event of blackout or brownout.
There are unique custom software programs to maintain the flow of emergency dispatching in the event of national or regional disasters. For example, a program called Storm Mode enables AMCEST senior supervisors to prevent non-emergency signals, such as those caused by power outages, from being presented to dispatchers. Thereby, only emergency signals are processed during storms, earthquakes and other disasters.
The AMCEST disaster recovery plan, filed with Underwriters’ Laboratories, includes both a local and geographically remote hot back-up site.
AMCEST – Monitoring Department
There are currently 92 employees providing monitoring service at Amcest. The 8 supervisors and 12 assistant supervisors manage three eight hour shifts, 365 days a year. Several senior supervisors have had specialty PERS training; National Academy of Emergency Medical Dispatch and University of Utah Emergency Medical Dispatch.
The training of new monitoring agents is conducted by supervisors who follow the AMCEST in-house course created by an APCO Certified Instructor. This two week intensive training is completed by a week of observing senior dispatching agents in a live environment. On-going monitoring agent education is provided by in-house instruction and seminars conducted by manufacturers’ representatives.
Monitoring agent activity is video and audio recorded. These recordings are used to maintain quality assurance of monitoring agent performance. A monthly review of each agent is conducted. Bonuses and other rewards are granted for exemplary performance.
