How to replace an Apartment Intercom System without upgrading or using the existing cables.

Apartment living (or any multi-tenant dwelling) is becoming more popular as the price of housing becomes unaffordable or travelling long distance from an affordable suburb to your place of work is not an option. 

Apartment buildings control access to the facilites with intercom systems usually with a number of technologies including voice calls, video calls, card reader technology and pincode. Visitors can either call a resident or attendant for remote access permission or access through local permission via card reader / pincode. 

Many older apartment buildings 10+ years old have intercom and access control systems that are failing or spares are becoming difficult to source. 

The cabling system used by these systems often included coaxial cable for video (analogue) and multicore cable for power, voice and signalling.  The cable looms are often quite large and were installed as the building was being constructed.  Trying to replace these cables now is often not viable due to cost, or access issues, leaving apartment body corporates with an expensive mess to fix.  The biggest cost of any access control system is always the cable infrastructure upgrade and labour.

There are intercom and access control systems that use IP over 2-wire technology allowing a new system to use the existing cabling.  While this sounds straight forward, in reality there may be many amplifiers, power supplies, junction boxes, and connector blocks which need to be removed or replaced.  Additional issues may be the diameter of the cables (copper core), noise on the wiring due to joints, nearby motors (airconditioning plant, elevators, electrical wiring), identifying and documenting the existing cabling infrastructure and new interconnections on completion, and ongoing support of a modified system.  Further issues may be around integrating into an existing elevator control system or other building management systems.  All of this is time and materials which greatly inflates the cost of the system upgrade.  Ongoing support may be a significant issue in cost or time as you are locked in to the installer and their processes for the life of the system.

There is a way around these issues, that can provide state of the art video intercom and access control with card reader technolgy without recabling the building.  The answer is mobile broadband or 3G/4G (LTE) mobile phone networks.  These systems utilise the mobile network as either mobile broadband (IP data) or standard mobile calls to communicate with apartments or attendant / concierge.  They also provide integration to existing systems over the same network or utilising the existing cables for Weigand or RS485 networks.

Mobile Telephony Based Systems

These systems use traditional mobile calls to contact Apartments, concierge, attendant, kitchen, etc.  Phone numbers are programmed in for each end point and most of these systems allow multiple numbers to be programmed for the same end point.  Being phone numbers means that they could be mobile phones, or room phone numbers. The door may be opened in the call or preauthorised numbers can call the door station to open the door / gate.  These systems tend to be audio only and are a quick and easy upgrade for an ailing audio intercom and access control system.

The systems below are currently sold and supported by us.  Each system can be viewed by clicking on the image or title where there is more information available including data sheets.  You may also contact us to discuss relevant to your own situation. 

Mobile Data Based Systems

Mobile broadband provides the speed and capacity in modern networks to stream video in realtime.  These systems are capable of high data throughput and use IP rather than telephone calls to communicate to end points.  Typical endpoints may be a mobile App on mobile phone or tablet, a purpose built video endpoint device, or even SIP devices or SIP servers.  Being mobile broadband based IP devices they can send commands to networked IP systems such as building management systems and application servers. 

These systems are managed via a central server giving full control from anywhere with access to the internet.  Management of the door station and the endpoints is through the same service and monthly subscription charges do apply.  These can be apportioned to each apartment which is a good option for body corporate management in comparison to the large capital expenditure required for new cable infrastructure.  Another benefit for body corporate management is that any owner who does not want the system does then incur a large bill for unwanted infrastructure works and can easily be added at a later date.

Each apartment requires an answering unit or an App can be downloaded to mobile phone or tablet device.  Another option is to register the LTE Verso with a SIP service and call an App or IP Telephone (see Grandstream GXV3370 SIP Multimedia Telephone) or connect a 2N IP Verso to a local internet connection (not LTE or 4G) and provide an all internet connection solution with HD video.  The 2N method is to use the 2N IP Touch answering devices and register them with the My2N.com service.  All setup and connection is managed through the My2N cloud and can be managed anywhere there is an internet connection.  The 2N Ip Touch screens are listed below.

The systems below are currently sold and supported by us.  Each system can be viewed by clicking on the image or title where there is more information available including data sheets.  You may also contact us to discuss relevant to your own situation. 

The following 2N LTE Verso intercoms are the main part of a centralised modular intercom system. The main camera unit requires an appropriate mount (flush or surface) and can have additional modules added up to 9 in total (the image above shows 4 modules).  All this system needs is power, a SIM card with data pack, and to be registered with My2N portal for management.