Least Cost Routing LCR the Deadly Game Telephone Carriers Play with your phone calls which could prevent a signal from you Fire or Burglar alarm from being answered.

A burglar is breaking into your home or you are having a medical emergency and you push your emergency alert button .

No worry's the central station is being contacted and help is on the way.  But is help coming?

The answer could well be no because of a deadly game phone company's like Verizon , Comcast  etc play with how your phone call is transmitted from your home to the central station Via toll free numbers .  Which recently happened when a customers sprinkler system activated due to frozen pipes and a signal was not sent by the Silent Knight 5104 B dialer.

I check the dialer all was OK properly programmed phone line working but when it called central station the central station was getting an error message unknown account number#  So what is going on .

Lets say your home or business is in Pittsburgh Pa. and the central station you use is in Erie Pa. 

When the alarm dials the 800 number you would expect it stays with in the borders of Pa. on phone lines which run Between Pittsburgh and Erie  Wrong.

When the number is dialed the phone company central office switch gear looks at where the number is going and then determines the cheapest path to get it there which could be thru Ohio then thru NY and then finally into Pa. and Erie County . In some cases phone numbers being dialed in Pa are being routed as far away as Texas and every time it keeps switching the potential for line noise  and interference which can keep call from completing . All in a way to save phone company's money.  Once I reprogrammed the dialer to a different 800 number so it took a different path  it was operating fine .
But the problem is only getting worse and even if you use a central station with in the county you live with this new least cost routing and new VoIP internet phone switching phone company's are doing there is no guarantee you will not have a problem. Even if you have a traditional land line known as POTS or plain old telephone service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softswitch

While new fire panels are required to test both phone Numbers every 6 hours to the central station older panels only dial every 24 hours and test  and some burglar alarm systems only test every 30 days or not at all
and with many burglar alarms being serviced at central stations many states away   which is typical with big  national alarm company like ADT you can see the potential mess we have on our hands and why it is essential to check and find out why a panel has not sent in a test signal.

On many of my accounts I am now backing them up with cell phone and internet connections  via Honeywell Alarmnet  or thru Uplink   which provides triple redundancy of the signal getting out but even this is no guarantee.
As phone company's keep playing games to lower costs and refuse to properly maintain infrastructure it is only going to get worse.