AT&T to Sell Equipment to Monitor Workplaces

By JANET MORRISSEY
AT&T plans to introduce a nationwide program today that gives owners of small- and medium-size businesses some of the same tools big security companies offer for monitoring employees, customers and operations from remote locations.

Under AT&T’s Remote Monitor program, a business owner could install adjustable cameras, door sensors and other gadgets at up to five different company locations across the country.

Using a Java-enabled mobile device or a personal computer connected to the Internet, the owner would be able to view any of the images in real time, control room lighting and track equipment temperatures remotely. All the images are recorded on digital video, which can be viewed for up to 30 days.

“It is Big Brother, but in this day and age, you need these type of tools” for theft protection, weeding out false accident claims and other risks, said Beaux Roby, owner of a chain of five Mama’s Café restaurants and two banquet halls in Texas. Mr. Roby has been using the system for nine weeks as part of a pilot program. “You have fraudulent claims from customers that trip and fall and things like that,” he said.

Aside from helping to verify insurance claims, the system can detect break-ins, alert an owner if a boiler breaks down and monitor employees who “are just sitting around on the clock not doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” Mr. Roby said. In one instance, he said, a worker seen operating a meat slicer without wearing protective gloves was reprimanded.

The program from AT&T, the only phone company to offer a remote monitoring system to businesses, expands a residential initiative that began in late 2006 that offered limited remote monitoring and captured still pictures from a home. For businesses, digital video monitoring at multiple sites is added. “It’s a unique and affordable option for a small business that wants to keep in touch with various locations,” said Steve Loop, executive director for business development at AT&T. “It saves them a lot of time in their day from having to physically go to all of their locations.”

Equipment costs range from $199 for a fixed camera starter kit in a single location to $349 for multiple cameras including ones that will pan or tilt. Monthly monitoring charges range from $9.95 for a single location to $39.95 for five locations.

AT&T’s main competitors in this field, ADT and Digital Witness, charge higher prices and do not offer sensors to control lighting or to monitor temperatures.

The AT&T system is not foolproof, however. As a Web-based service, it is vulnerable to the loss of a broadband connection. If the system fails, the monitor would lose the ability to view locations remotely. “This is not positioned as a security service,” Mr. Loop said.

ADT and Digital Witness’s equipment and services, while more costly than AT&T’s, are able to continue monitoring a business even if a broadband connection fails.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/technology/14monitor.html

I know cameras are probably everywhere, but I feel so naked reading this. :scared:

in the pocketbook.

Hurt their bottom line. Cell phones, home phones, dsl....

And when they ask why you're canceling, tell them it's not nice to help destroy the Constitution and turn the country into a police state.

Love the IPhone, hate AT&T, the bastards :)

You have an excuse, though--you're an internet artist--you need continuous web access as a function of your creativity!!!

There's a guy out there on the web who actually managed to hack the phone to get his own carrier--it seemed like a rather onerous process.

I have AT&T mainly because thats the only provider that picks up where I work, so its a must have for me. So far so good for the past few months. I love my Samsung A727 phone BTW, I got tired of flip phones.

Anyone going off to the wild blue yonder takes it "in case of emergency." We very rarely use the thing, so it costs almost nothing on a yearly basis, even though it isn't a bargain minute-for-minute. But then, we aren't hyper-mobile, either. We're either a zillion miles away, or close to home. No in-between!

During my summer job (at the Outerbanks NC), I stay at my Aunt's camper on the work days. I dont have a laptop, and my job is outdoors, so when it looks like it may rain or theirs a storm close by, I go to the weather channel's website on the cellphone to check the radar. Comes in pretty damn handy!

My sister's the only person who uses a cellphone ALOT. Reason being, she doesn't have a regular phone at her apartment. She gets good signal and all so its no prob for her, plus it saves her money for not having regular phone bills.

You need one in that case, too. If people need 'em, they should get 'em. I know a lot of the young folk don't even have landline phones--they just don't bother.

I had one on a contract a long time ago, and spent a bundle every month, and never used it. So I dumped it, rarely missed it, and then, when these goofy tracphones came along, they fill the bill for someone like me!

yeah, it's called "bricking" and the Mac coders are continuosly updating, so the hackers have to worry about their phone shutting down :)

I just go where ever they force me to go, Vista is trying to control media on PC's so I have to stay old school on my computer - god I hate the controls, ready to pick up a wheelbarrow and play in the dirt sometimes! :)

sending links to your stuff to everyone I knew! You ARE an artist--your stuff is :thumbsup: !!

It'll be awhile before I deal with VISTA--I have XP on most of our machines, but oddly enough, my favorite computer is an ugly ole and well-worn Stinkpad with 2k on it. Hey, it does what I want and works for most of the stuff I do on a regular basis, so what the heck!

I was given the responsibility for upgrading our internet connection. After doing a lot of research I found a nice quote from another big ISP. AT&T's quote was higher and for more years. I presented this to our CFO and he elected to stay with AT&T. Why? Resistant to change and unable to see the big picture. Oh well, I did my best to lose AT&T a customer. I myself, after having worked for them, will never use their service again. I have no land line, as a result. I haven't given them a penny in five years and I encourage all others to do the same.

I think it is important that employers TELL their employees that their work product and work center are being monitored. They don't have to say "Oh, there's a camera here, here, and there" but they should let them know in no uncertain terms. They should also have a "Your Computer is Subject to Monitoring" screen on start-up, as well.

There's a guy who had a website that posted the locations of monitoring cameras in NYC...dunno if it is still up, but it was hard to find an area of the city that was NOT under surveillance.

friend was CFO of a small 200 person operation and was angry about the $30,000 per year cost - which allowed the owner to tap into any phone and listen at any time, and included 16 cameras that were on screens (and one shot taped every 20 seconds) which he kept in his office.

What is new is the ability to have your spying put on the internet so you can monitor from anywhere.

The AT&T sales people will verbally tell the senior managers they are trying to sell this crap to that it will be easier to fire people when they have a video record to make their case with. This will be particularly useful when applied to employees who may be close enough in service years to allow retirement or other benefits to apply. Just fire them for (allegedly) being too slow or for putting a roll of Scotch tape in their pocket. Get used to it folks, it's coming to a workplace near you. If it's not there already.

go figure, irony at it's finest hour, Ladies and Gentlemen our government is above the very law they enforce us to adhere to.:banghead:

This is one private company offering a service to other private companies.

that had a secret room of which a hearing is going on now where AT&T was the main one that worked with the Bush admin to spy on all of us americans.

I wouldn't be able to stand being watched all the time.

I can definitely see the need for such a tool. Thankfully, I have a small, honest staff where constant monitoring isn't necessary but that doesn't mean I will completely rule it out should the need ever arise.

protect yourself as you have to watch your profit margin to be able to compete in the business world. We have all read about large corporations such as Wal-Mart where they announce how much it costs them in employee theft, shoplifting, etc. The main thing about AT&T is their eager williness to do this sort of thing on American citizens. Remember their secret room they set up to do the illegal spying on us all for Bush. Those hearings are going on now as one of their employees is doing a lot of talking. I believe Verizon was in on that as well.

This however actually is a business deal between AT&T and those such as yourself but it goes to where it looks like they enjoy concentrating in the spy business.

We're the phone company". Lily Tomlin

Check on Ebay. The equipment to do this is a generic commodity. If you can afford it, it's a nice thing to have when you go on vacation to check the house etc.

they have a right to protect their interests and investment.

Background checks on potential employees, including the credit scores. Piss test for potential employees, screening for everything from drugs to cigarettes and alcohol. Monitoring employees email, personal contacts, via keystroke recordering, cameras, tape, microphones. Monitoring employees when their off the clock, on the clock, around the clock.

You know, it's really a sad commentary when Americans continue to roll over for this kind of shit. A hundred years ago and more, our forerunners in the labor movement went out on strike because businesses were being over intrusive into the lives of their employees. Even a generation ago, people would recoil in horror at the very notion of half of what passes as normal today. Yet twenty five years ago, employees started that slow gradual creep towards totalitarian corporate authority. First came the drug tests, which corporate America said they needed to screen out people in dangerous jobs. Then as the piss test became ubiquitous for all jobs, camera monitoring of the workplace started creeping in, and it too has become widespread. Now the corporations are slowing sliding in controls for their employees personal lives, and the work environment has become an Orwellian nightmare with cameras, mikes, computers, etc. Yet sadly, people across this country continue to accept these intrusions into their lives as somehow necessary and right, when in reality they're not.

Corporate American, under the rubric of preventing employee theft, is spending billions of dollars on high tech security. Yet employee theft has remained fairly stead over the past quarter century, taking aprox. 1-3% of the profit from any given retail business. If employers are worried about employee theft, experts in the area say that the two greatest deterrents to employee theft is paying your employee a decent wage and creating a friendly, welcoming workplace. Instead, corporations are going the opposite direction, underpaying their workers and treating everybody in the organization like a criminal.

This is are real sad commentary on American society. What was once considered a set of freedoms that workers fought and died for is now considered to be a right for corporations. How low we've fallen.

this is for monitoring employees in the workplace- which every employer has a right to do.

(although- dressing rooms and bathrooms should still remain private)

I doubt if any employee feels very loyal when the big wig , big shot think they have the right to spy on them .

I never stole a thing in my life and I did not need any damn camera to keep me on the right path .

marshall field's & zayre- one common thing with both stores- the employees were some of the biggest thieves we had to deal with.
at field's, we installed a camera after hours to monitor a girl at the cosmetics counter, and when viewing the tape, caught a salesgirl in the jewelry dept. stashing things in her purse. btw- this was more than 20 years ago when we used the camera- it was a large camera by today's standards, but had a 'pinhole lens', that made it great for use in a drop ceiling.

The role of the employer is to provide a place for the employee to sit, in a warm comfortable environment, drinking coffee, chatting, and surfing the net all day! To say nothing of swiping pens, post it notes, reams of xerox paper, paper clips and assorted accoutrements for home use!

And they'd better not be late with that check, either!!!!

goofing off?

:sarcasm:

This is ideal for the small business that barely makes a profit, has to watch expenditures, and has a couple of hundred employees scattered over a few offices in a state or region, with management that makes well less than 10x the lowest salary in the company.

It's really not "OK" to fuck around at work if you're on the clock and responsible for grinding out product--theft is theft. If you are on salary and the boss says it it ok, that's an entirely different situation, but getting angry because a boss expects people to work for their pay isn't very logical. Lots of small business owners aren't fat cats. Business is not an inherently evil entity.

That bakery owner wants to be sure the flour and sugar aren't growing legs and walking out the back door; that gift or clothing store owner wants to be sure the retail sales personnel aren't helping themselves to product or what's in the cash register.

This is an affordable solution for those types of businesses, and others as well.

I take it that you think that it's perfectly acceptable to wiretap because if you're not doing anything wrong it won't matter.

My brother works for Eagle Transport delivering fuel to gas stations. On their trucks now, they are being equiped with GPS systems to track where the trucks have been and how fast they were going, they even have a governer set at 65mph. These things are done to make sure no one is goofin off or breaking rules, they are very strick on company rules and they inforce it! It doesn't bother my brother since he does what he's suppose to and abide by the rules.

Boss: Is the job done?

Employee: No sir.

Boss: Why not?

Employee: Uh uh but but but

Boss: Your fired.... next!




Pretty simple huh?

Inexpensive too.

Unless you want to do full inventories every week.

If you read the OP, you'd see that this system is quite inexpensive and affordable for the small business owner.

I'v seen a few flat out lie about their job. If employees arent doing their job, they're costing the company $$$$. I'd put up camera's and stuff too to make sure people were doing their jobs if I was an employer.

when someone is being paid to do a job, that's what they are supposed to be doing- i have no problem with employers monitoring employees.

That's a phrase everyone should get used to. Quickly. You're not going to stop it.

To all those business owners , you have your crap to find out who has a criminal record and all the other tools like back ground checks , use this system then be fair and install one in your own office so the employees can see you setting the great example you expect , it's only fair .

While you are at it hand out your credit report so people know they will get paid . You want this , then give it back . I can't wait until the real big brother has a camera in your home too so you know just how it feels to not be trusted with anything .

This reminds me of the bush spying program where people who are stupid and say they have nothing to hide , that's not what it's really all about , it's about privacy and how about a tiny bit of trust .