NextAlarm Monitoring Services, Inc., which offers a variety of burglary and fire protection products for homes and small businesses, has entered into a distribution agreement with Hughes Network Systems, LLC (Hughes), a major player in broadband satellite solutions and services and a provider of managed network services.

Under the agreement, Hughes will offer all of NextAlarm's (News - Alert) products and services to subscribers of its HughesNet service.

The NextAlarm line of products features wireless security cameras, a wireless alarm system and a patented broadband adapter that allows most existing alarm systems to communicate over the Internet.

"We have a history of innovation in this industry, especially in the field of keeping costs low with a high number of features," said Alex Elliot (News - Alert), CEO of NextAlarm, in a statement.

"We are proud to be the only alarm company that offers service to consumers over satellite," added Elliot.

Back in November, NextAlarm Monitoring Services announced that it would be expanding its reseller program. The program, previously targeted primarily at other companies within the alarm industry, now allows retailers, distributors, and non-alarm service providers to offer all of NextAlarm's services to their customers.

The program is geared towards allowing partners to offer NextAlarm services quickly and easily, with a minimum of effort required to get started. The upgrade represents extensive development in NextAlarm's business model, as well as in its administrative back end based on the company's patented Alarm System Activation Platform, or ASAP (U.S. patent 7,613,278 B2).

Although NextAlarm has had a reseller program in place for several years, it has until now only been available to licensed alarm installers and other companies within the security industry.

The partners NextAlarm targets with the new program include any company offering household services in the tech and telecommunications fields, but not traditionally including security alarm systems.

Anil Sharma is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Carrie Schmelkin