Last updated: May 1, 2026
You're shopping for a home or business alarm system in Hamilton, Niagara, or the GTA. You see ads from ADT, TELUS, and Bell home security. You also see local companies like us. Who's actually different, and which one is right for you?
This is an honest comparison. We're Force Security and yes, we want your business. But we're going to walk you through what each company actually offers, where they shine, and where they fall short. By the end you'll know what questions to ask before signing anything.
Mark, Shelby, and Damon Kaine. The people you actually talk to when you call Force Security.
If you're already a TELUS or Bell customer who values bundling, the big-three options work fine. If you've ever fought a national provider over a contract or felt like a ticket number, a local company is going to feel different. Force is local, family-run since 1988, no multi-year contracts, you own your equipment. That's the short version.
In This Comparison
- The TL;DR Comparison Table
- ADT Canada (Now Part of TELUS)
- TELUS Smart Home Security
- Bell Smart Home (Formerly AlarmForce)
- Force Security
- Contracts: The Real Cost of "Free" Equipment
- Who's Actually Watching Your Alarm?
- Who Owns Your Equipment
- Local Technicians vs Call Centres
- Which Should You Pick?
- Frequently Asked Questions
The TL;DR Comparison Table
Here's the high-level. Each section below goes deeper.
| ADT | TELUS | Bell | Force | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canadian-owned | Yes (TELUS) | Yes | Yes | Yes, family-owned |
| Local to Niagara/Hamilton/GTA | No | No | No | Yes, since 1988 |
| Long-term contract | 3-5 years | 3-5 years | 2-3 years | Month-to-month |
| ULC-certified monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (ULC S561) |
| You own the equipment | No | No | No | Yes |
| Open-standard panels | Mixed | Proprietary | Proprietary | Yes (DSC, AJax, Honeywell) |
| Same tech installs and services | No | No | No | Yes |
| Bundled with phone/internet | Yes | Yes | Yes | No (security only) |
Reality check: The big three (ADT, TELUS, Bell) have national reach, recognizable names, and the ability to bundle security with your phone or internet. The trade-off is multi-year contracts, leased equipment, proprietary hardware, and a call centre when you need help. Force is the opposite: local, no contract, you own everything. Pick what fits your situation.
ADT Canada (Now Part of TELUS)
ADT Canada
National brand, now owned by TELUS as of 2019.
What you get
- Recognizable national brand. The little blue ADT yard sign people recognize
- ULC-certified monitoring through TELUS's Canadian monitoring centres
- Standard alarm equipment (often DSC or Honeywell panels)
- Mobile app for arming, disarming, and basic camera viewing
- Optional add-ons: cameras, smart locks, smart thermostats
What to watch out for
- Standard contract is 36 months. Some customers report 60-month contracts
- Early termination fees are usually remaining months times your monthly rate
- The salesperson is not the technician. The technician is not the monitoring operator. The operator is not the customer service rep
- Annual price increases are common after the first year
- If you want to cancel, you're in for some phone tag. We wrote a guide on how to cancel ADT or TELUS in Canada
Best for
Homeowners who value brand recognition over local relationships and don't mind a multi-year commitment. The yard sign has real deterrent value because everyone knows the logo.
TELUS Smart Home Security
TELUS Smart Home Security
TELUS's branded security service. Same parent company as ADT Canada.
What you get
- Modern touchscreen control panels
- Strong integration with smart home devices and the TELUS app
- Bundle pricing with TELUS internet and mobile services
- ULC-certified monitoring
- Cellular and battery backup standard
What to watch out for
- Their newer SmartHome panels are proprietary. If you ever switch companies, the panel can't be reprogrammed by anyone else
- Multi-year contract is standard. Cancellation fees apply
- Bundle pricing looks great until you try to break out one service later
- Customer service is centralized. The person answering your call is rarely in your city
- If the monitoring system flags something, you're getting a call from a dispatch centre that may not know your neighbourhood
Best for
Households already deep in the TELUS ecosystem (mobile, internet, TV) who want a single bill and don't mind proprietary hardware. The bundle math can work if you're staying with TELUS for the long haul.
Bell Smart Home (Formerly AlarmForce)
Bell Smart Home
Bell home security service. Bell acquired AlarmForce in 2017 and rebranded.
What you get
- Bell brand recognition and bundling Bell home security with Bell internet, TV, and mobile
- Two-way voice on the alarm panel (legacy AlarmForce feature people liked)
- Cameras, smart thermostats, video doorbells available in Bell home security packages
- ULC-certified monitoring
What to watch out for
- Like TELUS, the Bell home security system is proprietary. Switching means new gear
- Customer reviews highlight long hold times and difficulty cancelling. AlarmForce had a rough reputation before the Bell takeover and many of those concerns carried over to Bell
- Multi-year contracts are standard
- Two-way voice sounds great on paper. In practice it's mostly used for the operator to confirm a real alarm versus a false trip, which any monitored alarm does
- Bell focuses heavily on the bundle. If you ever leave Bell internet, your security pricing usually changes
Best for
Bell internet/TV customers who want one company for everything and like the two-way voice feature. Just go in with eyes open about the contract length.
Force Security
Force Security
Local, family-owned alarm company in Niagara Falls. Serving Hamilton, Niagara, and the GTA since 1988.
What you get
- Family-owned and operated since 1988. Mark, Shelby, and Damon Kaine run the company. They live here
- Local technicians who install and service in Hamilton, Niagara Falls, Toronto, and the surrounding GTA
- ULC S561-certified monitoring from a Canadian centre. The same one used by major banks and government buildings
- Open-standard equipment (DSC, Honeywell). You can take your equipment to another provider if you ever leave
- You own the equipment outright
- No multi-year contract. Month-to-month monitoring
- The technician who installs your system is the one who comes for service
- 5,000+ systems installed. 4.8 stars on Google with 150+ verified reviews
What to watch out for
- We don't bundle with phone or internet. We do security only. If a single bill matters more than anything else, you'll want one of the big three
- We don't have a national flashy marketing budget. Our growth comes from referrals and customers who switched after fighting their old provider
- Our coverage area is the Niagara Region, Hamilton, and the GTA. We don't operate across all of Canada
Best for
Homeowners and businesses who want a local company that actually picks up the phone, no contract lock-in, and equipment they own. Especially if you've been burned by a national provider before and want something different this time.
Contracts: The Real Cost of "Free" Equipment
The biggest difference between the national providers and us comes down to how the math works.
ADT, TELUS, and Bell all subsidize your equipment in exchange for a multi-year contract. That "free panel and three sensors" install isn't free. You're paying for it across 36-60 months of monitoring fees, plus annual rate increases. By year three or four, you've paid for the equipment several times over.
If you try to cancel, the early termination fee usually equals your remaining monthly fees times the months left. Some people pay $1,000-$2,000 just to escape a contract. We hear this story all the time when customers call about a takeover.
We do it differently. You buy the equipment up front. You own it. You pay monthly only for monitoring, and you can cancel any time. The math is more honest because there's no hidden equipment subsidy baked into your monitoring fee.
How to do the math on your own contract: Pull up your most recent bill. Multiply your monthly rate by the months remaining on your contract. That's roughly your early termination fee. Then take your current monthly rate, subtract what a no-contract local provider would charge, and multiply that monthly difference by 12. If the annual savings are bigger than the ETF, switching pays for itself within a year. If you're already past your contract end date, there's no fee at all. We hear this a lot. People assume they're stuck and they're already free.
"You're not paying for security. You're paying for the contract that comes with it."
Who's Actually Watching Your Alarm?
This is the question almost nobody asks before signing. All four companies use ULC-certified monitoring centres, which is the Canadian standard. But "ULC-certified" doesn't tell you the whole story.
What matters is response time, dispatcher familiarity with your area, and whether your alarm is actually monitored or just a noisy box on the wall. We've written a separate piece on whether your alarm is actually monitored if you want the deep version. There's also been some recent shake-up: TELUS bought The Monitoring Center in 2024, which moved a chunk of the industry under fewer roofs.
The big national providers route alarm signals through massive central monitoring stations. The dispatcher has no idea where Stoney Creek is versus Ancaster. They don't know which streets in Hamilton's east end have a known break-in pattern this month. They follow scripts.
Local companies like us share information with our local police contacts. When a Niagara Falls home alarm fires at 2am, the operator knows the difference between a coyote-induced false alarm in Mount Carmel and a real intrusion in the older downtown blocks. That context shapes the dispatcher's response.
Who Owns Your Equipment
The equipment ownership question becomes critical when you want to switch companies or move out.
With a national provider, the panel, sensors, and cameras are usually theirs. Some companies remove the gear when you cancel. Most don't bother because the labour cost exceeds the equipment value, but they might still send a bill saying you owe them.
Even worse, if the panel is proprietary (TELUS SmartHome, Bell Smart Home, Vivint), no other company can reprogram it. So if you switch, you're starting over with new hardware. Even your wiring can get awkward if the new panel uses different terminal layouts.
With Force, you own everything. Sensors, panels, wiring, cameras. If you ever leave us, the equipment is yours and any qualified company can take over the system. We use open-standard panels (DSC, Honeywell) on purpose for exactly this reason. We don't want you locked in. We want you to stay because we're worth it.
Local Technicians vs Call Centres
This is the hidden quality difference. When something goes wrong with a national provider, here's the typical experience:
- Call the 1-800 number. Wait on hold
- Explain the issue to a tier-one rep who reads off a script
- Get escalated. Wait some more
- Get told a technician will come "within the next 5 business days, between 8am and 6pm"
- A subcontractor shows up. They've never been to your house before. They might not even work directly for the company you're paying
- If the issue isn't resolved on the first visit, repeat steps 1-5
With a local company, the technician who installed your system is the technician who comes back. They remember your house. They know where you put the sensors and why. They know which neighbour's tree is going to set off the motion detector next time the wind picks up. The relationship is what you're paying for.
This isn't a knock on the people working at the big providers. They're following the systems they were given. The difference is structural. National providers can't economically run your security relationship the way a local company can.
Which Should You Pick?
Three honest scenarios:
Pick ADT or TELUS if
- Brand recognition matters more to you than anything else (the yard sign deterrent factor is real)
- You're already deep in the TELUS ecosystem and want a single bill
- You don't mind a multi-year contract
- You travel a lot and prefer a national provider with offices everywhere
Pick Bell Smart Home if
- You're a Bell internet/TV customer who wants the bundle
- You specifically value the two-way voice feature
- You're OK with proprietary equipment
Pick Force Security if
- You want a local company that picks up the phone
- You want the same technician who installed your system to come back when you need service
- You don't want a multi-year contract
- You want to own your equipment outright
- You're switching from a national provider after a bad experience
- You're in Hamilton, Niagara Falls, Toronto, or anywhere in the GTA
Bottom line: The big national providers are fine for what they are. They have national scale, brand recognition, and the ability to bundle. The trade-off is multi-year contracts, leased equipment, and a call centre relationship. If those trade-offs don't fit your situation, a local company is going to feel different in a way that's hard to put into words until you experience it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ADT or TELUS better in Canada?
They're the same company. TELUS bought ADT Canada in 2019. The yard sign and brand are different but the back-end monitoring, billing, and customer service are merged. If you're choosing between an ADT package and a TELUS package, focus on the contract terms and equipment, not the brand name.
Is Bell Smart Home the same as AlarmForce?
Bell Smart Home is what AlarmForce became after Bell acquired the company in 2017. The technology, customer base, and most operations transferred over. If you have an old AlarmForce contract, you're now a Bell customer.
What's included in Bell home security packages?
Bell home security packages typically include a touchscreen control panel, a few door and window sensors, a motion detector, ULC-certified monitoring, and the Bell mobile app. Add-ons like cameras, smart locks, smart thermostats, and video doorbells are sold separately. The exact bundle depends on the contract length and whether you're combining it with Bell internet or TV. Most packages come with a 2-3 year contract and proprietary hardware that can't be reprogrammed by other companies.
Are there local alarm companies in Toronto and the GTA besides ADT, TELUS, and Bell?
Yes. Several Canadian-owned alarm companies serve Toronto and the GTA. Force Security covers Toronto alongside Hamilton, Niagara, and the surrounding regions. Local Toronto alarm companies tend to offer shorter contracts, the same technician on every visit, and equipment ownership instead of leasing. The trade-off is no national bundling with phone or internet.
Can I switch from ADT, TELUS, or Bell to a local company without losing my equipment?
It depends on your panel. If you have a DSC or Honeywell panel (common with older ADT installs), most local companies can take it over by reprogramming. If you have a proprietary panel from TELUS SmartHome, Bell, or Vivint, the panel can't be reused, but your wiring and most door/window sensors usually can. We offer free takeover assessments to confirm what's reusable before you commit.
How much does it cost to cancel ADT or TELUS in Canada?
The early termination fee is usually your remaining contract months times your monthly rate. If your contract has expired, there's no fee but you still need to give 30 days written notice. We have a full guide on how to cancel ADT or TELUS with the phone numbers and process.
Are local alarm companies as reliable as ADT or TELUS?
The monitoring infrastructure is the same. Any reputable Canadian alarm company uses ULC-certified monitoring centres that meet the same standards as the national providers. The difference isn't the technology, it's the service. Local companies have shorter response times for service calls, the same technicians on every visit, and more flexibility on contracts. We've been monitoring homes and businesses since 1988, including for clients who left bigger providers.
Why do ADT and TELUS still have such big market share?
National marketing budget and bundle deals. ADT spent decades making the yard sign recognizable. TELUS has the ability to bundle security with mobile and internet, which moves a lot of customers without them shopping the security market specifically. Most people don't compare alarm companies the way they compare car insurance, so the default options win.
Does Force Security cover Toronto and the GTA, or just Niagara?
We cover Hamilton, Niagara Falls, Toronto, and the surrounding GTA including Burlington, Oakville, Mississauga, Brampton, St. Catharines, Welland, and the smaller towns in between. Our Niagara Falls office is the home base, but our techs install and service across the region every day.
Get a Free Comparison Quote
Tell us what you're looking for and we'll give you a straight answer about whether we're the right fit. No pressure. No multi-year contract pitch. If a national provider is actually better for your situation, we'll tell you.
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