Most Responsible Persons did not choose the signalling path on their Fire Alarm panel. An installer fitted it, a service contract covered it and for years it quietly worked. Then on 15 December 2025, BT Redcare shut down for good. And the question landed on the desk of whoever signs off on Fire Safety for the building.
The problem is not that Fire Alarm monitoring after BT Redcare has no answer. It does. The problem is that the answer was chosen by someone else and the legal accountability stayed with you.
If you are the Responsible Person and your contractor has already migrated your system, you still need to know what they migrated it to. If they have not, you are sitting on a silent Fire Alarm. The panel looks fine, the Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) hears nothing and the first person to discover the gap will be a loss adjuster or an enforcement officer. Either way, your Fire Risk Assessment (FRA) should have been reviewed by now. There are six or seven questions you should be able to answer about your replacement monitoring before someone else asks them for you.
BT Redcare was the trading name for BT's fire and Intruder Alarm signalling service. It provided the signalling path between a building's Fire Alarm panel and an Alarm Receiving Centre or ARC. The ARC is the 24/7 staffed monitoring station, certificated to BS EN 50518, that pages the fire service and keyholders when an alarm activates. The signalling path is the communication route the signal takes to get there, historically a dedicated BT phone line with end-of-line monitoring.
BT announced the closure on 31 January 2024, and stopped selling new Redcare products at the end of February 2024. The original shutdown date was 1 August 2025, later extended to 15 December 2025. An estimated 100,000 to 120,000 UK properties relied on Redcare products - fire and intruder systems combined. What happened at the deadline depended on which product a building was running. The older units on BT Redcare Secure, Classic and GSM stopped working, and had to be replaced with an IP-based alternative or they went dark. The Next Generation Portfolio (NGP) units - the Essential, Advanced and Ultimate ranges - were transferred onto AddSecure's platform and carried on working as normal, with no hardware swap for the property owner. The closure was driven by the wider PSTN switch-off led by Openreach, which removes all analogue phone lines from the UK network by January 2027. On the replacement side, the two names you will hear most often are CSL DualCom GradeShift Pro and AddSecure, both established alarm signalling providers whose IP and 4G products are now widely used by contractors holding BAFE, NSI and SSAIB certification.
We use CSL DualCom as our primary signalling technology. We migrated our clients from BT Redcare to dual-path IP/4G ahead of the December 2025 deadline.
If your system was on one of the older Redcare products - Secure, Classic or GSM - and it has not been migrated to a replacement, it is no longer sending alarm signals to an ARC. The panel in the cupboard may look identical. The red and green lights may behave normally. But the signalling path to the monitoring centre is no longer there. A fire on a Sunday night would sound the bells in the building and reach no one else.
If your system was on a Next Generation Portfolio (NGP) unit, the picture is different. Those units transferred to AddSecure's platform when Redcare closed and should still be signalling, with no hardware swap needed. That is not a reason to assume all is well: you should still confirm in writing that the unit is live and reaching the ARC, and note that the company behind your monitoring has changed. But you are checking a working system, not chasing a dead one.
If your system has been migrated, your contractor has swapped the Redcare unit for a replacement signalling device. It will almost certainly use an IP connection and a 4G back-up. That is the dual-path arrangement the industry is standardising on, in line with BS EN 50136 ATS (Alarm Transmission System) requirements. Two independent communication routes, so that one failing does not leave the building silent.
In either case, the signalling path is new or newly absent. That is a material change to a Fire Safety provision. And under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRFSO), material changes to Fire Safety provisions trigger a review of the Fire Risk Assessment.
Under Article 13 of the RRFSO, the Responsible Person must ensure the premises are equipped with appropriate fire detectors and alarms where necessary. Article 9 requires a review when there is reason to suspect the assessment is no longer valid or when a significant change has occurred. A change to the way your Fire Alarm communicates with the outside world - the transmission path between the Fire Detection and alarm system (FDAS) and the receiving centre - is the kind of change Article 9 exists for. We recommend treating it as a review trigger and documenting that decision.
Then there is Article 17. This is the maintenance duty. The Responsible Person must ensure the Fire Safety system is kept in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair. If ARC monitoring forms part of your Fire Safety provision - as it does for most insured commercial premises - a Fire Alarm that is no longer transmitting to the ARC is not in efficient working order, whatever the panel display says. The prosecution record under the Fire Safety Act 2021 and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 is clear. Enforcement officers treat Article 17 failings seriously once a fire has exposed them.
None of this is about whether ARC monitoring is legally required. It is not, in isolation. BS 5839-1:2025 is a code of practice, not a statute. Whether your building needs monitoring is driven by your Fire Risk Assessment and, usually, your insurer's requirements. But once monitoring is part of your Fire Safety provision, keeping it working is a legal duty under Article 17.
BS 5839-1:2025 is the British Standard code of practice for Fire Detection and Fire Alarm systems in non-domestic premises. It sets out expectations across offices, factories, retail units, care homes and other commercial buildings. It is the code of practice most insurers and fire risk assessors rely on when they judge whether a system is fit for purpose. On signalling, the headline points are:
The Fire Industry Association (FIA) guide to the changes in BS 5839-1:2025 sets out the full detail. The transmission performance itself is graded under BS EN 50136-1, the European standard for alarm transmission systems. DP3 (Dual Path 3) is the commercial-insurance default. DP4 is reserved for high-risk sites such as pharmaceutical plants, data centres and major heritage buildings. If your contractor quotes you a grade, those are the two you are likely to hear.
Insurers have their own view on top of all this. Aviva's risk management guidance on the closure of BT Redcare is clear: policyholders are expected to maintain equivalent or better signalling arrangements after migration. A drop in signalling grade that has not been discussed with your insurer is a claim problem waiting to happen. A claim denial is the one cost that always falls back on the Responsible Person.
The term you will hear most often is "dual-path IP and 4G". In plain terms:
The ARC at the other end of the signal is certificated to BS EN 50518:2019+A1:2023 and BS 9518:2021. Those standards cover the physical construction, staffing levels, power resilience and procedures of the monitoring centre.
On the installer and ARC side, third-party certification is the marker to look for. BAFE SP203-1 is the modular scheme that registers Fire Alarm installer and maintainer companies. NSI (National Security Inspectorate) and SSAIB (Security Systems and Alarms Inspection Board) are peer UKAS-accredited certification bodies that certify both installers and ARCs. UKAS, the United Kingdom Accreditation Service, is the sole national accreditation body recognised by Government that oversees the scheme operators. What you want on paper: a contractor and an ARC both certificated to a recognised scheme - BAFE SP203-1, NSI Gold or SSAIB. The NSI company finder lets you check whether your contractor holds the certification they claim.
A note on language. BAFE is a fire-only scheme. It does not certify ARC monitoring directly, so you should not see "BAFE-monitored" on a quote. ARC certification for fire signalling comes through NSI or SSAIB. And all of these schemes certify companies, not individuals, so "BAFE-qualified engineer" is the wrong phrase. The right phrase is that the company is a BAFE SP203-1 registered company and the engineer works for it.
For our clients, we use CSL DualCom GradeShift Pro for signalling and route signals to Southern Monitoring, our NSI ARC Gold certificated monitoring partner. As a BAFE SP203-1 registered company and NSI Gold approved since 2005, we hold exactly the credentials the checklist below asks you to verify.
The following is an informational overview, not legal advice. Your Fire Risk Assessment and a competent Fire Safety professional should determine your exact obligations for your specific building.
If your maintenance provider has migrated your system or is about to, these are the questions to get answered in writing. Put them in writing. Keep the reply on file. If the answers are clean, you have closed the gap. If they are not, you have found it before it found you.
None of these questions is adversarial. A competent maintenance company will answer them all without hesitation. A company that cannot or will not, is the warning signal the checklist is designed to catch.
We are a BAFE SP203-1 registered company, NSI Gold approved since 2005 and SSAIB certificated - the credentials this checklist asks you to verify. We are happy to run it against your current contractor's paperwork. Our Fire Alarm maintenance and monitoring service covers the signalling hardware and the ARC connection - one point of accountability, not two.
The signalling path stopped working on 15 December 2025. The panel itself will still detect fires and sound the bells, but the signal to the Alarm Receiving Centre is no longer reaching its destination, so the fire service and keyholders are not being paged. Under Article 17 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the Responsible Person must keep Fire Safety systems in efficient working order. A non-transmitting system does not meet that duty. The practical step is to get a written confirmation from your maintenance contractor of the current signalling status today and a migration quote if it has not already been done.
Yes. Article 9 of the RRFSO requires the Fire Risk Assessment to be reviewed when significant change has occurred or when there is reason to suspect the assessment is no longer valid. A change to the communication path between your fire panel and the Alarm Receiving Centre is a material change to a Fire Safety provision and falls squarely within Article 9. The review does not have to be a full re-assessment, but it should document the new signalling product, the ARC receiving signals, the transmission grade under BS EN 50136 and confirmation that the arrangement still meets the building's fire risk profile.
BS 5839-1:2025 does not mandate a specific grade; it sets transmission performance expectations (alarms to the ARC within 90 seconds for Category L systems, 120 seconds for Category P) and points to BS EN 50136 for the grading framework. In practice, DP3 is the commercial-insurance default most contractors will quote and DP4 is reserved for high-risk sites. The grade your building needs is driven by your Fire Risk Assessment and your insurer's requirements, not by the standard alone. If the replacement grade is lower than your previous Redcare arrangement, the insurer must be notified before that becomes a claim problem.
Ask for three things in writing: the ARC name, its certification and the certification body. A compliant ARC is third-party certificated to BS EN 50518:2019+A1:2023 and BS 9518:2021 and operated by an NSI or SSAIB registered company. BAFE certifies fire installers, not ARC monitoring directly, so a quote describing a service as "BAFE-monitored" is using the wrong term. The NSI company finder and the SSAIB directory both let you verify whether the ARC and the installer hold the certifications they claim. If your contractor cannot name the receiving ARC or its certification, that is itself the finding.
A fault indication must display at the panel. BS 5839-1:2025 requires loss of both signalling paths on a dual-path system to register as a fault; loss of a single path alone is not required to display, because the back-up path is still transmitting. Faults in transmission equipment should be flagged within 3 minutes for Category L systems and 31 minutes for Category P. If your panel stays clear when both paths are tested offline, the system is not meeting BS 5839-1 expectations and the installer should be asked to demonstrate correct fault signalling at the next service visit, with the result recorded on the log.
The alarm signalling migration was never really about BT. It was about the last analogue strand of UK Fire Safety being pulled into the IP era. The Responsible Person duty under Article 17 did not pause while the industry sorted itself out. If your building is monitored, the signal is either leaving the panel in working order or it is not.
Not certain where your building stands? We can carry out a free, no-obligation signalling review as part of our free business fire and security survey. That covers a panel check, paperwork review and a written confirmation you can file at your next insurance renewal. A family-run Essex company with 47 years in fire and security - big enough to cope, small enough to care. We have been NSI Gold approved since 2005 and BAFE SP203-1 registered, so you can verify our credentials with NSI and BAFE before we visit. Call us on 01702 447800 or arrange a survey online. Our Fire Alarm monitoring service covers signalling, ARC connection and ongoing maintenance - so once the paperwork is in order, it stays in order.
