10 Realities Of Home Security Systems That Prove You're Better Off Dead Than Owning One

2. Burglars Can Easily Bypass Most Residential System Technology

All residential alarm systems, old and new, have one Achilles' Heel in common to drive a nail in their coffins. That nail is how they communicate. Most systems can be easily bypassed by any criminal with half a brain about his dubious profession by simply severing a system's communication with the monitoring company. It's residential security's greatest weakness and most serious flaw: alarm systems require the home to have a phone line for the system to send signals. All a burglar has to do is snip the phone line (an obvious move for a seasoned criminal) and the system becomes just a loud noise. Next all they need to do is bust the siren off the wall (usually within feet of the keypad) and the system is completely defeated. Realizing the fatal nature of the flaw, alarm technology advanced two steps forward to include radio transmitters that can send signals wireless. The drawbacks? Most alarm companies pay cellular providers to use their towers to transmit signals. The signal strength they pay for is so low the transmitter can take up to nearly two minutes to transmit. Two minutes is an awfully long time to be in a house with a burglar, but it gets worse. The average police department takes about ten minutes to respond.