What is BS 8521-2:2020 about?
This new British Standard has been written to keep pace with the UK’s transition away from analogue communications towards digital next generation networks (NGN). BS 8521-2:2020 defines IP communication protocols for social alarms, thus enabling the continued used of social alarm services across the UK.
Who is BS 8521-2:2020 for?
- The social care market for grouped living situations
- Equipment and Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) manufacturers
- ARC specifiers and system designers
- ARC service providers
Why should you use BS 8521-2:2020?
As telecommunication providers continue to migrate towards Next Generation Networks (NGN) they are increasingly converging voice traffic onto their Internet Protocol (IP) infrastructures, which may have an adverse impact on the reliability of in-call, tone-based protocols.
To enable the continuation of social alarm services across the UK, then, this specification defines the IP communications protocol for social alarms optimized for stand-alone usage. The majority of current social alarms usage is stand-alone within the home and not related to other alarm systems. As such, this standard will enable secure, reliable and robust communications over next generation networks (NGN).
BS 8521-2:2020:
- Specifies requirements for the transfer of information and control signals between social alarm equipment used in specialized group living environments and alarm receiving centres (ARC)
- Establishes a common signalling protocol over a public or private IP network to ensure that social alarm systems from different manufacturers exchange essential information and controls in a compatible manner
- Specifies a protocol for point-to-point transmission of alarms, faults, control signals and communications monitoring using the IP to enable communication of alarm information; speech path and system control commands; selection of local units in grouped equipment; request for information on outstanding calls; speech control functions; equipment control functions; programing, including parameter programing and parameter remote enquiry; and streaming media, e.g. voice
NOTE 1: The alarm protocol is intended for use over any network that supports the transmission of IP data with sufficient quality of service to support VoIP.
NOTE 2: The alarm protocol is defined as an XML scheme including the alarm types, codes and necessary additional information. The alarm protocol is an application layer protocol using another IP as a transport protocol to handle addressing and transport functions. The transport protocol initially defined in this standard is Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).