Telecheck

Jun 1, 1997 12:00 PM, By MICHAEL FICKES

Telecheck employees move freely through the company's high-rise headquarters building in Houston. They move so freely you might not realize that an advanced access control system protects company personnel and property.

Telecheck is the world's largest check acceptance company. Working with more than 160,000 retailers and financial institutions around the world, the company's systems aim to eliminate the risk of bad checks by providing access to a large, painstakingly maintained database and risk management system. This year, for example, Tele-check will handle $35 billion in annual check volume representing more than 585 million transactions.

Security Suite, an advanced proximity card system supplied by the Advantor Corp. of Orlando, Fla., provides security in Houston and at other Telecheck locations around the country.

In Houston, more than 1,000 Telecheck employees carry photo I.D. proximity access cards. Some are active cards that will unlock doors from distances of three feet. Most are conventional passive cards that will activate the system from several inches. Active cards are issued as a convenience to employees who must frequently carry files or equipment.

Whether they carry an active or passive card, employees entering the building after hours activate the Advantage Access and Advantage I.D. modules of the Security Suite system. The access component of the system reads the card and unlocks the door. The I.D. component accesses video files and flashes a picture of the employee onto the monitor at the guard station just inside the front door. The guard compares the person with the photo on the monitor.

A third Security Suite module contains a floor plan of the building showing the placement of detection devices throughout the facility. If a controlled door is breached, the Advantage Locator module pinpoints the alarm, displays its location on a floorplan, and allows the guard monitoring the system to track the movements of the intruder through the facility while mounting a response.

Matt Binder, Telecheck's security supervisor, chose the new system because it offers advantages over the company's old access control system.

Binder wanted a system with integrated photo identification capabilities and one compatible with Windows 95 and Windows NT networks. Four on-site, Windows-based PCs - including the one in Binder's office - can control the entire system.

The assistant security director has a control terminal in his office, and another control station functions primarily as the photo-I.D. badging terminal. Finally, the guard station at the front door to the building can control and manage the system when necessary.

With the Windows system, database management, report generation and alarm monitoring functions are all available at the click of a mouse. System functions and alarm descriptions are in plain English, allowing for quick interpretation and response.

While the Telecheck security force monitors the system directly, Binder takes advantage of system flexibility to choose an external monitoring company to provide back-up.

Finally, Binder wanted a system that would continue to work if the NT network should go down, a feature Advantor provides with smart control panels. The old system would go into a Odefault mode,' which means that anyone with a card that has the site code could get into any door, Binder says.

The enhanced security comes at a lower price. According to Binder, the old system cost approximately $3,800 per door, while the new system averages only about $2,000 per door.

Security Data Inc. of Houston installed the Advantor access control units for Telecheck, along with model 5280 long-range proximity readers from Cotag International, Dallas. Security Data also provides back-up monitoring services for the Telecheck system.

According to Ty Walters, service installation manager for Security Data, the changeover went smoothly. First, we installed the access control units in the building's mechanical room, Walters says. We mounted the new panels above the old panels. The process was a bit confusing because we wanted to use the existing wiring. To do that, we had to switch over entire floors in a single day, taking down the old controllers and powering up the new ones for that floor.

The decision to use existing wiring arose from the fact that the building's ceilings use interlocking tiles, which makes it difficult to get into the ceilings to run new wire.

When the time came to convert a particular floor, Walters' team removed the old readers, installed the large Cotag readers by dropping them down behind the walls. We put a cover plate over the opening in the wall where the old readers were, Walters says. The finished system uses 29 Cotag readers mounted at the front entrance to the building, at a basement entrance, and just off the elevators.

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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