PPVAR panels at ISC West merit a close look

For anyone monitoring the progress of the latest push toward a comprehensive verified alarm standard, there's a pair of consecutive PPVAR panel sessions at ISC West that are can't-miss in stature.

The first session, moderated by Steve Walker, vice president of Stanley Convergent, kicks off on Thursday, April 3 in Room 502, and is especially noteworthy because it brings several outside-the-industry perspectives into the same forum. Titled “Insurance and Law Enforcement Review Verified Alarms,” the session illustrates the array of stakeholder groups now influencing the conversation of verification. Among the six panelists are Cmdr. Scott Edson, Los Angeles Sheriff's Dept., and Anthony Canale, vice president of Verisk Crime Analytics.

The second panel, “Video Verification in the Alarm Industry,” is moderated by Donald Young, PPVAR president and chief information officer at Protection 1. The panel roster for this second discussion is designed to showcase a broad array of intra-industry views on the role of video verification in the alarm industry. Keith Jentoft, an industry liaison for PPVAR, said the lineup will feature representatives from the manufacturing side (Scott Harkins, president of Honeywell) and the central station space (Chuck Moeling, executive VP of sales at Interface, and Tony Wilson, president of CMS), along with representatives from the private investment and legal arenas.

The debate surrounding verified alarms is a fascinating one, and that's due in part to the general complexity of an issue that involves stakeholders from outside the industry, as well as a host of ideas about the role of verified alarms that dovetail as much as they diverge.

I expect these discussions to generate some high-quality dialog that not only zooms into the subtleties and particulars of verified alarms, but also pans out to ask the big, overarching questions about the role of the industry in general. As the industry evolves, what aspects of the alarm industry as we know it will remain in place? What's bound to change? What qualifies as a verified alarm, and where do legacy systems fit into the discussion?

These questions may not be asked explicitly, but I expect them to permeate the discussion.