Why our Apartment Complex needs Intercom ?

SHORT ANSWER:
A big complex like APR Condominiums has too many end-points of communication which need both simple calls as well as Multi-point-to-point simultaneous call handling and unlimited minutes of use. These spans areas of zero or  ineffective cellular coverage right to  acceptable-to-good cellular coverage. The only feature-rich, reliable and cost effective solution is a wired intercom system supported by a Business Grade PBX which provides supplementary services and required intelligence for handling voice calls like any medium-to-large enterprise.


DETAILED ANSWER:
Their is no one correct answer. It depends on what facilities and infrastructure you apartment complex has. Consider two extremities of the situation:

Complex A - A SMALL apartment complex (very few apartments) with NO AMENITIES

Complex B - A BIG apartment complex (like Adarsh Palm Retreat, Prestige Shantiniketan, Brigade Metropolis, Mantri Espana, etc) with MANY AMENITIES

AMENITIES imply the following:

1. Clubhouse with many recreation, well-being and sports facilities (like Yoga room, Restaurant, bar, Badminton courts, squash courts, Tennis courts, swimming pool, Gymnasium, etc
2. ATM
3. Supermarket and Grocery Store
4. Creche
5. Ironing shop
6. Dry cleaners 
7. Beauty Salon, haircut, etc
8. Medical store
9. Multiple Gates for entry/exit or intermediate security checks
10. Others like association room, Maintenance/Plumbing/Electrical office(s), Surveillance C and Security Control roooms, Telecom Service provider support offices

and the list goes on and on as much marketing brochures can fart and builder can deliver. Generally bigger properties have world class clubhouses with a long list of amenities. 

Now Complex A is a small property. The communications with the community are rather limited:

1. Resident to Resident (helper information/reference, neighbour issues, or just a social chat)
2. Resident to Security and Vice Versa [for Visitor or helper management)
3. Resident to perhaps maintenance-cum-security office [i.e. if we really have one in the first place]

Such complex has very limited number of communication points. The directory is small, easy to maintain and *always keep consistent with actual tenancy.  It is possible to store mobile & landline  numbers of each and every resident and office in mobile. And the amount of traffic of such interactions (even directed towards or from one *busy point like security gate or maintenance is very small). Therefore in such as case mobile-mobile solution is an acceptable and potentially workable solution. 

But Complex B the interactions extend far beyond the the 3 points listed for Complex A, such as

Gate to Gate (Security co-ordination)

1. Facility office to facility office
2. Clubhouse amenities to Residents and vice versa
3. Between Clubhouse facilities
4. Resident to Supermarket and vice versa for ordering stuff and settling payments 
5. Bookings of clubhouse on phone
6. Conforming medicine availability, parlour appointment, creche inquiry
7. Security calling 
8. Asking Iron guy to collect clothes or deliver
9. Security to apartment in case of any event, maintenance to apartment, apartment to maintenance for issues such as power outage, water supply stopped, help for apartment  maintenance, etc
10. Helpers to any flat or facility office
11. Kid/elder getting hurt or needing urgent medical attention. may or may not be carrying mobile or able to speak, but easier to speak flat no. and then flat no are directly mapped to intercom extensions
12. and the list goes on and on ...

Plus their is a sheer explosion of communication points like 1000+ apartment units and 50-100 common area extensions. It is very tough to load all number into 1000+ mobile phone keep, and even if its done, keep them up to date all along on all mobiles. Or worse look up in some online/offline directory and dial. For e.g., tenants and owners moving in and out and database not getting updated.  or ensuring only authenticated numbers are entered in directory, etc. These are operational headache. Multiple people can end up calling security/maintenance at same time with most getting a busy signal and having to retry periodically till they get through [Power Outage in block for e.g.] lowering user experience. Technical challenges like no cellular coverage, phone batteries failing or getting discharged fully, spotty cellular coverage indoors (typical of large residential  complexes outside core central and developed mixed-use city areas like APR or Whitefield), no signal in basement where maintenance offices are located further hinder smooth communication.  Any solution based on wireless (cellular) is simply not reliable enough. 

Therefore Telecom Sub-Committee believes that the Reliable system is a wire-line intercom system (for intra-facility communication) which can follow on mobile (resident roamed outside the apartment) if required or requested by resident either *always or *conditionally (no-answer or busy) or even *never (for eg, on holiday or business travel to other city/country)

So what is the concrete proposal for intercom and its competency & value ?

SHORT ANSWER:
Traditional telephone system with an on-premise PBX and numbering plan that is derivable from flat no., Tower and block (and fixed for life) to minimise directory size and maintenance across 1600 communication points. Low cost, High Reliability, Ubiquity, and ease of use across all age groups, residents, helpers, security, maintenance staff etc are the key value offered by such a system. No need to invent the wheel and use what medium-to-large enterprises use.


DETAILED ANSWER:
By Simplicity and traditionally proven and reliable technology, rather than an emergency or fancy  or self-serving and self-declared revolutionary solution. Here is how:

First, we want to use traditional analog-phone and not IP phone/Cellular phone etc which is powered by household supply or battery but by the network itself. It has following advantage:

1. Simple to use across ages - Senior citizen, Kids, Helpers and even tech savvy residents/guests can use landline phones
2. Cheap -  Nothing is more cheaper as a device for voice calls
3. Reliable - powered by network and not by Home UPS/home socket/battery etc all of which fail more frequently. Requires little to no maintenance and is as reliable as the network is. For all power requirements of this network, all equipment in network is on 24x7 UPS, backed by DG supply if utility power fails an
4. Availability - All equipment inside our facility and operated by one provider. No dependency on network and events outside facility like pulling down of cellular towers, Cellular towers shutdown/maintenance, congestion of network, signal strength, Fiber/Cable cut of landline, etc

Many residents already have *spare fixed line handsets from other property, broadband service, etc.

Second, we have extension of residents apartment using hierarchical dial plan with 6 digits such as

Lotus 1101 - 601101

Lotus 101 - 600101

Mayflower Q-1001 -> 731001 [Tower(7) + Block(3=Q) + Flat No.(1001)]

Daffodils E-702 -> 350702

These numbers stay same as long as building stands. If a tenancy changes, the number does not [A big issue on subscriber owned mobiles and landlines].  

Third, because these numbers are easy to construct mentally just before dialling rather than remember or have the need to lookup in directory. Kids, Senior citizens, less educated helpers, contractors, security staff, etc can also use it apart from tech-savvy citizens from anywhere and everywhere where an extension is present.  The remaining 50-100 common area extensions are 3 digit numbers referable by directory lookup (hard-copy, PDF file, web-page, etc)  like any hospitality business and many of them maybe easy to remember. 

By contrast landline providers like BSNL and Airtel can only allocate 4 digits in centrex, which is insufficient atleast for APR with 8 towers, 30 blocks and 44-64 flats per block. This would require directly loading & maintenance of 1500-1600 numbers in all of the 1500-1600 terminal's directories, a job not easy to accomplish. BSNL and Airtel solution can work for APR Villa projects [Villas numbers ranging from 001-999] . Similar restrictions apply to cellular number allocations

Fourth,  deploy a Business Grade PBX [like Matrix Eternity Series] which can handle voice (and in future video), mobile terminals (like smart-phone with app tied to intercom and roaming inside facility and ringing in parallel with landline extension), can support supplementary service like call forward conditional/blind/always-disable to mobile, and can do automatic callback if a particular extension is busy [suitable for security, maintenance, club, etc]. Basically make the system smart and intelligent

If anyone has concern that such system cannot work well, please observe (and ask your IT/facility Administrator) what is deployed in your office as well as your previous or other BIG properties. You will know what industry trusts and whether we are going with the industry or against it.

What are the alternatives to the sub-committee proposal ?

SHORT ANSWER:
Centrex (PBX in Service provider network), Mobile-Mobile P2P calling, Mobile CUG, Building Intercom System. and  an On-Premise PBX solution.

Here is a quick comparison summary of these solutions stack up:

Alternative Vs Competency	Big Directory Lookup	Cost Competitiveness	Service Reliability	Smart PBX features
Centrex	Yes	Worse (Indirect)	High	Very Good
On-Premise PBX	No	Medium	Highest	Best
Mobile CUG	Yes/No	Medium	Low	None
Mobile P2P	Yes	Best	Low	None
Building Intercom	No	Worst	Highest	None

From a pure solution competency and fitment competency angle, you can see why the sub-committee prefers the on-Premise PBX solution. 

DETAILED ANSWER:
Here are what we could think as potential solutions to the facility communications problem and not limited to few areas like visitor management (guest, e-commerce delivery, service of household goods, etc)

1. Centrex (PBX in service provider network ) 
2. PBX (on-premises) and Analog phone (Intercom solution) 
3. Mobile-Mobile Closed User Group (CUG) 
4. Mobile calling or P2P mobile calls
5. Dedicated Building Intercom systems 

(1) and (2) are proper intercom solutions which solutions that can satisfy most of the sub-committee thinking and requirements, while (3) and (4) are just attempts to mimic intercom functionality when no PBX system is available, infeasible to implement, etc. (5) is a solution more targeted to visitor management application rather than generic intra-facility communications. 

(1) and (2) are basically the same type of solution, the only major differentiation between whether the PBX is inside the facility or outside in service provider network. Centrex has many advantages for residents as it requires ALL residents to just have a landline from the provider (Operator A in our case), and then he adds all users to a centrex group and provides PBX like features to calls made between members of a centrex group including unlimited minutes of use. The operator does maintenance of equipment and phones. The disadvantage is that in India only 4 digits can be used to specify the flat no and remaining 4 is allocated by operator. For eg. 4130 can be the common 4 digits of centrex number with the last 4 digits allocated  to the facility to decide. For APR condominiums 4 digits are insufficient to specify a flat uniquely as our flat numbers are non-unique 4 digits (10th and 11  floor itself) and we have grouping of flats in tower and block with no way to specify those. Therefore this requires maintenance of directory of 1500-1600 extensions which is impractical.  Plus it forces everyone to use a broadband connection from one operator destroying the entire concept of choice of broadband provider.

An On-premise Business-Grade PBX on other hand puts a telephone exchange inside the facility, creates an independent telephone network and delivers voice (and other) services on that via the simplest to use, cheapest to buy and most commonly available traditional analog phone. you can configure services, do forwarding to mobile, create any dial plan which maps unit nos. to intercom no., etc, provides unlimited minutes for internal communications. It can be used to make outgoing calls which are billed only to the residents who use the feature. And it reaches everywhere we want a communication point in the campus. 

A Mobile Closed User Group (CUG) is very similar to Centrex, minus the PBX features and done using cellular phones rather than landline analog phones. the benefit is no charge for calls made between users of a mobile CUG (same as the above two features). It depends on availability of good cellular signal and less congestion at all signal to work reliably and no congestion of calls made to specific number. It is usually deployed for mobile teams of government and private agencies who roam outside campus but need to continuously communicate with members of their organisation. More Point-to-Point communications unlike PBX and Centrex which work better for Multi-point-to-Point call traffic. it also requires society to buy 1500-1600 cellular numbers with 4 digits allocate to operator and circle, and the remaining 6 potentially usable to describe each extension, provided operator can allocate. 

Building Intercom system requires big investment in apartment infrastructure, may not  retrofit with homes easily as builder has not planned wiring for it during construction nor promised it as deliverable. Its terminals are usually video enabled and their a big upfront cost in terminals and wiring infrastructure development.

Mobile P2P method requires zero infrastructure setup. Just provide mobiles to each common area location. Residents already have mobiles. The trouble is most high rise with basements (have spotty mobile coverage and absent signal in basement where many facilities and offices are located) making calling unreliable or impossible in many scenarios. Directory management is a big pain and residents keep changing due to tenancy and synchronisation of contacts is as big issue. Then their is a question of misuse. Security stats using visitor mobiles and ask them to directly call residents and handover phone to them to confirm if the number with them is unanswered, not reachable, wrong, etc. They really have no idea whom they are speaking to, comprising the apartment security. This is the biggest flaw of mobile P2P calling as observed from current use and deployment.

How to the costs stack up with comparative solutions ?

SHORT ANSWER:
Here is how the solutions compare:

1. Centrex (PBX in service provider network ) - 5000 onetime plus Rs. 500 pm usage
2. Mobile-Mobile Closed User Group (CUG) - 150 pm usage and RS. 1000-1500 for mobile
3. Mobile calling - No direct charge to user (as he is already paying for his mobile) but indirect costs of only Rs. 10 per month per resident
4. PBX (on-premises) and Analog phone (Intercom solution) - Rs 1000 one time plus Rs. 100 usage
5. Dedicated Building Intercom System - Proprietary solution. Cost very high and indeterminate without starting a bidding process

Before cost comes competency,  and our conclusion is first based on competency and fitment with an eye on cost control. 

DETAILED ANSWER:

Solution 1

For Centrex solution, Our telecom sub-committee spoke to Operator A who was ready to give it free for his broadband customers, but for Rs. 5000 one time and Rs. 500 pm usage  for Operator B, C, D Broadband customers . This was deemed an indirect way of trying to monopolise entirely, the more expensive, profitable and dynamically changing Broadband business putting residents at a very serious disadvantage [A monopolist does not reduce tariff or provide better and more delightful service as he does not need to do it]. And therefore rejected. 

2 decades back service providers will give PBX free if they get 100% or even majority of business on copper network (laid by builders) as they do not have to invest anything in infrastructure. Users pay for telephone and monthly subscriptions recovers PBX cost and operation.  But today no broadband or landline provider is investing ion copper (DSL) but only in Fiber (FFTH/FTTx) which requires installation of expensive ONT (Rs. 4000 atleast per home) and OLT device (Rs. 4000 per home) in order to offer voice (landline telephone), data (Broadband) and video (TV) service. So about Rs. 8000 per subscriber investment. They cannot recover costs if subscribers choose other provider for highly profitable broadband service. So Operator A was fully justified in offering what he best offered in order to not damage his business. 

Ofcourse, before rejection on cost we could not accept Operator A's solution because he was not able to provide 6 digits for numbering plan which we wanted. 

Solution 2
For Mobile CUG,  the association would need 1500-1600 SIMs (provided the operator can provide 10 digit numbers with 6 digits reserved for subscribers). In india, The cheapest Prepaid tariff plan which costs about Rs. 150/- per month (below this amount its not viable for mobile operator to give a phone which latches on to their mobile network and makes outgoing calls),  plus in worst cases of people not having dual SIM phones with spare slot available for use, we need to buy a fixed Cellular terminal or entry level feature phone which will cost Rs. 1000-2000.  Plus association would have to work out on how such bulk mobile number purchase and recharging is done. If done by association, we need to pay 2.4 lakhs every month, which we cannot afford as our monthly income is far far lower than this. If this cost of maintaining additional SIM is passed to user, we introduce another failure point of resident or facility staff not recharging mobile or the problem of collecting Rs. 150 from each resident and then recharging his mobile. 

However before cost comparison this option is not preferred due to reliability issues with 1600 mobile maintenance, contact maintenance and sync, and spotty to no cellular coverage in 30% apartments and practically no coverage in basement 

Solution 3
This solution on the outset looks the most attractive as almost all residents will have mobiles for which they are already paying. The only delta which society has to pay is for the common area extensions (50-100) which will cost Rs. 15000/- per month to society or Rs. 10 per month to every resident. However this solution has serious drawbacks due to spotty to nil cellular coverage at multiple network points, call drops due to mobile network congestion, Relocation of cellular towers outside the facility causing variation in signal strength, no intelligent features like call parking when simultaneous calls are mode to one common area or facility mobile, maintenance and synchronisation of 1500-1600 contacts, etc. The solution is rejected purely on competency grounds.

Solution 4

The negotiated costs are Rs. 1000 one-time and lifetime fixed installation charge [to be paid by owners] and Rs. 100 per month subscription charge [paid by resident for use]. No charge to owner if flat is unoccupied.  This is inline with our "agreement to sell and construct" signed with builder where builder will provide only cabling infrastructure and 3rd party will provide service at one-time installation and monthly subscription.  This makes the communication infra contained and independent of external factors APR with only operation in hands of a 3rd party. 

Whom did we select to implement the service and why ?

SHORT ANSWER:
Operator P. Because he has partnered with builder to put his wired network at all 1600 communication points and was the only operator who was offering the on-Premise PBX solution. The tariff plan was similar or lesser than most other societies where an independent intercom solution is deployed without any riders on subscription rate by residents to other services like broadband, TV, or landline voice in order to subsidise intercom.


DETAILED ANSWER:
In APR condominiums among Operator A, B, J, P & S offering Broadband services, only operator A, J, and P can offer voice services with B & S being pure data (Broadband) players.

Operator A, J can do only Centrex. A is ready, but he competes with J for final 30 meters. J's network is not even ready now. 

Operator P can obly do On-Premise PBX which we prefer and Builder has tied to make Operator P network in each and every Home and reserved for exclusive use by Operator P for delivering services

The default choice therefore was only Operator P and the intercom contract is therefore given to Operator P as they submitted a bid which met both our competency and cost requirements. 

Most societies having independent intercom pay Rs. 100-150 per extension and therefore operator P's  of Rs. 1000 one-time and  Rs. 100 pm offer was acceptable. In some old societies where one operator has majority business, he offers intercom free to all as they already recovered CAPEX because of many years of near monopoly or full monopoly business. Its not possible on FTTx and Operator choice from day 1,  to replicate the zero cost model from start, but the door to make cost zero or Rs. 25 or Rs. 50 is open, once  everyone subscribes to intercom service for few years and vendor recovered his CAPEX and made reasonable profit. 

How is the executon planned out and what support is required from residents ?

SHORT ANSWER:
Step 1 - Centralise lift emergency intercom and make emergency helpline work.
Step 2 - Implement all extensions in common areas to cover gates, clubhouse, amenities, etc and give residents utility of the service
Step 3 - Ask residents to subscribe and use the services, pay and use


DETAILED ANSWER:
Intercom project has recently being divided into THREE sub-projects that are being concurrently executed

1. EMERGENCY Intercom Centralisation  - The Current deployment is that the termination side of this is mounted in basement/podium-lobby of each block where no one is available round the clock to pickup and answer calls for help)
2. Common Area Extensions (Gates, Offices, facilities, Club, Amenities, Service Providers)
3. Apartment Extensions

The first sub-project is being done by the builder and elevator company while Operator P is tasked with the 2nd and 3rd.

We recognise that their is very tight relation and inter-dependency between (2) and (3). Till their are not enough common area extensions , the utility of intercom remains low and will not drive residents to start subscribing. So the sub-committee has decided to 

• Expedite work on (1) and (2). Only recently the club got inaugurated, so the only work done till now was to enabling the wiring for (1) and (2) which is ALREADY COMPLETED. This was step 1.
• Make Clubhouse the control room of Operator P. He has been ALREADY MADE to shift from his temporary location to a more central permanent location below clubhouse. 
• Centralise all emergency Intercom to Clubhouse CCTV room. This will complete 90 communication points (60 elevator cars and 30 lift rooms in 30 blocks). This task is expected to complete by Dec 10, 2017
• Next enable all common area extensions (working phone) in as many common areas as feasible (some facilities and infrastructure is still not ready). The costs are borne by builder as of now. The number of such extensions maybe as high as 50 and we hope to completed this task by Dec 15, 2017
• In parallel we hope residents trust in our ability to get execution done, and start subscribing to intercom services. We need to move from 260 extensions to about 900 for residents which is a big journey and leap of faith. 

Sub-project 1 and 2 have been slow in execution and one of the reasons was that common area infrastructure like clubhouse, Security booths, maintenance office blow club were not ready and operational. So really their was no scope of doing any work except cabling and cabling HAS BEEN COMPLETED.  Now the only thing left is installation of handsets and voice gateways which is planned to be done as per above schedule. Residents in parallel must now start subscribing to intercom in larger numbers and this is support  and cooperation we need from each and every one of you.

Is intercom service mandatory to subscribe and why ?

SHORT ANSWER:
Yes. It is mandatory to subscribe for all residents. The objective is to complete implementation the service in continuation with the Terms & conditions outlined in "agreement to sell & construct" signed with builder. Also making  guarantees ubiquity, simplify roll-out,  reach and therefore usability of the service in addition to making the intercom business sustainable as independent service for service provider.


DETAILED ANSWER:
Telecom Sub-committee divides its project into two category:

1. End User facing Services - like DTH TV options (Operator T and A), Broadband providers ( Operator A, B, C, JS, etc). Our role is only technical and management support and regulatory
2. Apartment facing - CCTV, PP, Intercom. Our Role is to drive the  deployment and be the customer for the service on behalf of association

For category 1, we just facilitate the environment for infrastructure development, leave it to the ISP to offer services and to the residents to *choose and use what they want, till when they want and freedom to move to other if services not satisfactory

For category 2, we have only CCTV and Intercom for now, which are owned by apartment (anything builder buys and deploys like Business-Grade PBX and cabling gets transferred at extra (or included) cost to owners). Because its owned by apartment, all owners have to pay and share the costs. This is one reason why society had earlier decided in an SGBM that it is mandatory for all owners to pay for for CCTV, PP as well as Intercom. 

Mandatory subscription has a couple of benefits:

1. Firstly, the major reason on why intercom does not work in some societies is that many residents understand that it belongs to Category 1, as then they think its optional to use and ultimately decide to not use for some reason (The problem is more severe with tenanted flats, with tenants changing every year or two and our society will also have 50% plus tenants like any other). This causes coverage (and therefore utility holes) and requires society to unnecessarily look to other SaaS or Smartphone based App solutions to fill the void whereas the root of the problem is that intercom is not universally available in residents flats
2. Secondly, because we do not have copper networks and only FTTH in APR condominiums, their is an associated cost with ONT (which has not being paid by owners or builder) is as is the current practice in real estate market (usually Rs. 10,000-12,000 per apartment) . After careful optimisation of network and MDU ONT (shared ONT) deployment, the cost now has been bought down to only Rs. 1000 per flat one time and Rs. 100 pm subscription which will help the provider, Operator P to recover his CAPEX costs in 3-5 years time. After 8 years, the network will transfer to Association. At the end of the day, the service has to be commercially viable to be rolled out. Its easy to say, its not my problem, but that type of argument is hardly helpful to resolve the situation
3. Thirdly apart from the need for residents to call security, maintenance, facilities, etc., their is also a need for other residents, security, maintenance, facilities to call them for smooth operation of building easily. This is where a universally adopted intercom system is useful

Residents should also note that the Patch panel and Broadband choice has seriously upset the intercom traditional business model making it a very hard to fund and operate business because of minuscule returns which no big provider is ready to chase. However because of increased competition in APRC for broadband (which 90% plus homes use), the players have been forced to reduce prices drastically in last year. Installation charges of 1000-3000 are waived off. Monthly subscription is down by 25-50% for same speed (or speed is increased).  And the trend will continue with entry of new operators. We hope residents to not see the Rs. 100 monthly subscription as the roadblock to adoption and instead look at the *Value the intercom system is trying to generate for society, for they have been already subsidised in Broadband. 

Are their any Privacy implications of intercom ?

Once intercom system based on EPABX/PBX is installed, extensions are reached by private numbers which mean nothing to the outside world. The system does not *ask or *expose your email ID, mobile no, landline number or another personal information for any form of communication. If security staff, resident  or other worker leak your intercom number to 3rd  party, they cannot use it for anything such as unsolicited advertising, tele-marketing, etc. This may be a very significant advantage over any solution which requires security to directly dial numbers using cellular phone (mobile P2P), Mobile CUG or App based Calling solution, where all numbers of all flat owners are loaded to tablets or mobiles given to security, residents, maintenance and facilities staff and the points of leakage are just too many to effectively secure.

Also the system can bar all incoming traffic or traffic from specific numbers if required, just in case incoming call facility or Direct Inward Dialing (DID) is required to be used and is being used for making unsolicited calls by telemarketers.

Is their any competition or dependency between intercom and smartphone app based solutions like myGate ?

SHORT ANSWER:

Probably none to our judgement. The focus of each is different and complementary in the overall security and helper management function. Intercom is a tool that is targeted to do intra-facility voice-communications better than everything else out their in the market. It does not constraint the purpose for which the voice call is made in any way. Similarly myGate, AC and Adda gatekeeper are smartphone app or SaaS based solution to improve functional domains of apartment facility management like visitor management, attendance of helpers, etc. However we do not agree that myGate's solution  for voice communication based on cellular P2P calling is a drop-in replacement  or substitute for intercom for reasons mentioned above. At best myGate voice calling feature is only a cheaper replacement for proprietary Building intercom solution. 

DETAILED ANSWER:

Intercom is a pure communication tool with intelligence only for voice and video communication handling. myGate is a application specific tool with inbuilt Business intelligence for select applications like Visitor and Helper Management, which is outside the scope  of intercom service which is just a tool.  It still does not cater to hundreds of other use cases for intercom use in society as outlined in the initial part of this blog. We see it as a complimentary productivity enhancement service, not essential one. as an equal or more number of societies using 

1. ApartmentAdda Gatekeeper or ApnaComplex Gatekeeper along with intercom (See testimonials company websites)
2. Register and Intercom for small to medium societies
3. Manual Register and mobile, or just mobile-to-mobile P2P calling, if you find a way to maintain directory and keep it up-to date especially for smaller societies. 

and which are doing visitor management reliably for years on for improved security. But we observed that almost all big societies have an intercom in place.

One feature of myGate, which is a small bit of concern, is the ability of that application to use cellular calls *exclusively between resident and security (simplified by inbuilt directory) and the company's sales pitch that if myGate is used facility does not need to depend on intercom (which for a bigger society like us is a marketing hyperbole).  If you read our blog carefully, you will judge why we think this way based on scope and handicaps of cellular calling. We just hope owners and residents realise the implications of falling for such marketing hyperbole and arriving to the conclusion that they do not need to subscribe to the intercom service because society is also giving them myGate access. 

Also  at times smartphone apps are not easy or always friendly enough to be used by many senior citizens, kids, helpers, etc at home but they can easily use traditional phone due to prior experience and simplicity. They may just prefer traditional phone call (pick receiver-on-ring or dial-a-number to talk).

Why is intercom subscription NOT FREE in APR Condominiums?

SHORT ANSWER:
Because of contemporary market conditions and business dynamics of telecom industry.


DETAILED ANSWER:

A decade ago all networks were copper based and  builder use to provide ONE copper network in any property which could be used by few *incumbent operators in market like A, B to give Broadband access (DSL), landline and Intercom/Centrex. The operators would give centrex/intercom feature free but expect you to mandatory subscribe to their revenue making landline or Broadband service so as to recover the investment made for PBX or Centrex switch. At-least they would demand an X% of residents to mandatory subscribe to landline or Broadband or else they would demand some monthly tariff or even installation cost., if they have not recovered their CAPEX.

In today's the times the situation changed drastically

1. Their are many new operators in the market who have broken the monopoly or duopoly of incumbents. They are constantly innovating service packages and tariffs are declining day by day due to competition. 
2. Broadband speeds have improved  to such an extent (100 mbps - 1 Gbps) that its not possible to meet them with Copper networks and requires Fiber to the Home (FTTx) technologies. Unfortunately FTTx infrastructure overall is more expensive than copper.
3. No operator or builder is interested therefore in investiung in copper networks ands they cannot monetize it enough and recover their investment in reasonable time frame. 
4. No user likes to submit to a monopoly of any one provider for broadband, landline or TV. He wants choice
5. Association therefore also cannot agree to single or dual vendor monopoly. Neither it can guarantee any operator any fixed share of business of Broadband, landline or TV. This is decided by residents and market dynamics

Therefore we have little choice but to independently operate intercom service and we have to pay minimal installation and subscription charges which are on par or below the general market standard. But because we bought more Broadband competition, the subscription rates are constantly going southward or better packages are being offered, which compensates the monthly intercom tariff many times over. And this trend will only continue while intercom tariff at best will stay constant or even decline with scale and passage of time,