Darren Frick

Beginning at COPS, 1989:

• Dispatcher. Midnight shift. Staff average 3 and a manager.
• Learned full operation and maintenance of the receivers at the time, OH Model II.
• Read a lot of sci fi. Played a lot of chess.
• At home during this time I was working on electric guitar skills (metal), and still into electronics and computers.

First challenge. 1992-ish Moved company to new building

• Physical move of receivers, telco service, automaton.
• On team to break down and relocate, re-install all receivers and workstations.

1992 - 1998

• Dispatcher. Moved to highest level.
• During this time, there was opportunity to reach an expert level with the receivers. More added; FBI CP220, Ademco 685 / Alarmnet. AES Net7K. KP, MLR2, Radionics D6500 (with the wand).

1998 - 2000

• Shift Manager, Operations. Day / Night swing shift. Days Mon - Tues AM, Fri Sat Midnight. Trained, performed reviews, ensured training gradation levels met by staff.
• Met more often with management, got to express ideas and contribute more to the growth of the company outside the sphere of operations.
• Added more receivers, OH2000, D6600, MLR2000
• IP communications gained traction. Caddix, Alarmnet-I, Bosch, OH Network. More!

2001 - Current

• Technical Services, Jr. PBX Admin.

Started with a G3si which was just upgraded from a System 75. A Key system was wired in as backup which was also in place for the System 75. We had to use it a couple of times, too. I give Jack Mays and the Lucent business partner credit for wiring it up, but I learnt all about it.

Technical position opened up. Roles:

• Basic station / port MAC to start. Self-taught hunt-groups, trunking (CO & DS1, FX), routing, Audix, Conversant.
• Learnt about billing, maintenance agreements, business partner relationships, carrier interactions.
• Trained top level Ops folks on all the receivers.
• Maintained all the receivers and installed. Now also doing the telco side.

2005 - Opened Scottsdale, AZ site.

• This was a major step. Required a PBX upgrade, WAN, network routing, Multi-site management, more complex call center setups.
• Took large part in design and implementation. Flew out twice in a month. This was not opening of a green site. Was acquisition of ACM UL Monitoring. So it was an upgrade, new network experience, and new hardware. Used a stack of G700's with CA Channel banks to serve the receivers.
• By this time vectoring was used for converse-deliver of ANI/DNIS to receivers.
• Converted from AT&T to Century Link as the main carrier. I managed the migration of all the toll-free's, about 1000 maybe at the time, new DNIS's, wrote a new phone line database in MS Access, which used to be in Excel.
• Century Link was relied upon for WAN implementation. Went with MPLS, used them to do the routers.

2006 - New Skill, Network Admin.

• Networking both internally and between sites grew a lot. I took on the role of network admin at varying levels, learned from various admins over years. At one point, I was for quite some time the only admin. Opened up Lewisville, TX as the only admin, with a little help from a Cisco contractor. During this time I was the primary admin and used:
• Cisco iOS switches. Installed and set up a couple of 4503 dup-processor cores, vlans, HSRP & BVI's on routers, dual path distro, WAN, DMZ
• Cisco ASA 15.1 (Still do some of that today)
• Sonicwall NSA2400 at all sites, VPN tunnels and clients, hundreds of firewall, NAT, Policy based routing.

I have to say there are some good aspects in this particular industry to be the same guy to do the network, phone, receiver install on one's own schedule very quickly, and be able to trouble shoot from end-to-end.

• Had to bring up to speed no fewer than 6 hired network administrators over 10 years or so. Always deeply involved, knowing every nook and cranny, taking over admin responsibilities on a day-to-day basis in-between their tenures. It is well known that this business has a pretty active network change rate.

During this time, learned some more Avaya disciplines.

• Upgraded from G3si to "communication Manager" staring at 2.1 up to current 8.1. Major upgrades from 2 to 3, 3 to 5, then 6, then 8.
• Took advantage of new features and capacities in vectoring, routing, and adjunct options.
• Went from 1 to 6 sites, with some of the site openings related to acquisitions and integration of telco and receivers at those companies.

- 2005, Scottsdale ACM UL

- 2006 Central One in FL. Stayed in that facility in Boca Raton.

- 2006 Security Associates Inc (SAI) - Moved all their services to the Boca office.

- 2008 Small call center office in Dallas Metro.

- 2010 Green DR Center, Lewisville TX. Doing network admin role at the time.

- 2012 Small call center office in Nashville.

2014 - Redesigned Automation Receiver signal collection.

• As part of DR enhancement, my design was implemented - not quite to my full spec, but including most elements.

- This was to place a layer between core automation and the receivers. - My design was a dual-FEP per site collector where receivers are not acknowledged until the signal is duplicated to a second server and connectivity back to core is confirmed.

- A level of status sharing among FEP pairs, meshed routing, and modem-over-pstn or SMS backup signal delivery was not included but was part of the design.

- This system is still in use today.

2015 Upgrade of network, shared admin role. Replaced core with Nexus 5500 as part of VM / Storage HP / Cisco solution. Rebuilt core from the 4503's to 3750's

- 2016 Opened Hunt Valley, Acquisition of Alarmwatch

• Re-built network with 4503's and new distro layer.
• Integrated with, then phased out the Inter-tel system.

2017 Or so - Avaya Upgrade. Went from ESS/LSP to VM platform. Replaced Audix with Aura Messaging.

2018 Or so - Avaya Upgrade. Introduced Session Managers, Breeze. Implemented internal SIP trunking.

2019 Or so to current.

- Added carrier SIP for evaluation, considering use for alarm signal calls. Avaya SBCE admin, Routing, Dial-Patters, Sites, etc.

- Added SIP trunks from smaller carriers for evaluation

2020 Acquisition of UCC.

• Integrated with existing Mitel and Adtran equipment.
• Phased out the Mitel system and fax / voice mail.

2021 Implemented Verizon IP trunking and VILO with trunks in Lewisville, TX and Williamstown, NJ.

• Currently converting DID on Windstream, AT&T, Lumen to VILO
• In-process up to become a RespOrg for toll-free carrier diversity.

For many years, made all choices for printers and copiers.

Handled the vendor interactions.

Handled in-house maintenance

Installed to network, phone

Responsible for user connectivity.

Brands include

- Canon

- HP

-Xerox

- Kyyocera