I'm about to purchase a home security alarm system ( https://www.fire-monitoring.com/ ) for my home in Toronto. I already have broadband internet, can that be leveraged on my home security system install to lower the monthly costs? Are there any alternative suggestions for setting up a home alarm system other than broadband?
It isn't a fire monitor (could be adapted) but for surveillance, I use a simple Raspberry Pi and it's camera module. If you load it with an operating system called "MotionEyeOS" it turns it into a multi-camera remote webcam. You download MotionEye, copy it to an SD card and plug it into the RPi, it does the rest for itself, you just have to specify the port number to view each camera individually or you can see them as a "video wall". It has motion detection which can trigger recording and can be remote controlled if necessary. I use it to monitor things back home on my mobile phone when I'm away.
Interestingly, if you buy one of those cheap "Easycap" USB video grabbers and plug it into one of the RPi USB sockets, it streams the analog video input as though it was a webcam too!