You have a rotary dial phone but do you still use it? The old handset must be comfortable and sound quality good but it must be inconvenient when you call an automated number and the other side says press 1 for Spanish, press 2 for Chinese... press 9 for Latin, press 10 for English.
I don't know about PageGate. It's fine that PageGate with GetTouchTone can understand DTMF but you should ask NotePage whether it can understand such tones sent using the Ademco Contact ID protocol--as just a series of numbers and letters or as an alarm message? And if not as an alarm message is there any facility in PageGate to pass that data to intermediary software that can understand, format, and pass it back to PageGate. And even if PageGate can do that, what do you intend to do with the alarm data--send it as an email to the Verizon email to SMS gateway or TAP to SMS gateway? It would be good to skip the email or TAP step if possible because they're just another opportunity for the message to get delayed or dropped. That's why I like the idea of that Topkodas device--though every alarm would need one it doesn't need email or TAP and goes straight to SMS (where getting delayed or dropped is also possible). You also have issues like How long will Verizon keep their free TAP service available?
Fine that you can use your computer's modem now but this would eventually be for customers, right? So you'll need multiple phone lines and modems because more than one alarm at a time could potentially call in and you don't want the phone number to be busy. A voice modem can translate DTMF to text and a program like PageGate can read it from the modem. There's a modem command you can use to see whether your modem has voice modem capability.
Seems to me Asterisk, AlarmReceiver, and an adapter card can do the same as PageGate in this situation.
Or is it that your alarms can be set to call either numeric pager services where PageGate and GetTouchTone would apply or a central station where Contact ID would apply? Or is it that your alarms are normally expected to call a central station with Contact ID but you were instead making do by calling a numeric pager service? Regardless, still good to avoid email or TAP gateways if you can. And computer should be able to be equipped to do GSM SMS.
I don't know about PageGate. It's fine that PageGate with GetTouchTone can understand DTMF but you should ask NotePage whether it can understand such tones sent using the Ademco Contact ID protocol--as just a series of numbers and letters or as an alarm message? And if not as an alarm message is there any facility in PageGate to pass that data to intermediary software that can understand, format, and pass it back to PageGate. And even if PageGate can do that, what do you intend to do with the alarm data--send it as an email to the Verizon email to SMS gateway or TAP to SMS gateway? It would be good to skip the email or TAP step if possible because they're just another opportunity for the message to get delayed or dropped. That's why I like the idea of that Topkodas device--though every alarm would need one it doesn't need email or TAP and goes straight to SMS (where getting delayed or dropped is also possible). You also have issues like How long will Verizon keep their free TAP service available?
Fine that you can use your computer's modem now but this would eventually be for customers, right? So you'll need multiple phone lines and modems because more than one alarm at a time could potentially call in and you don't want the phone number to be busy. A voice modem can translate DTMF to text and a program like PageGate can read it from the modem. There's a modem command you can use to see whether your modem has voice modem capability.
Seems to me Asterisk, AlarmReceiver, and an adapter card can do the same as PageGate in this situation.
Or is it that your alarms can be set to call either numeric pager services where PageGate and GetTouchTone would apply or a central station where Contact ID would apply? Or is it that your alarms are normally expected to call a central station with Contact ID but you were instead making do by calling a numeric pager service? Regardless, still good to avoid email or TAP gateways if you can. And computer should be able to be equipped to do GSM SMS.