VoIP isn't going away. And the more the alarm industry learns about it, the more reasons our industry must be careful when working around it. But we're going to have to work with it, because VoIP is taking over from POTS.

That's the gist of a new report from the NBFAA that was released Monday on the association's website, www.alarm.org.

The new NBFAA report addresses the issues that the alarm industry is facing with VoIP. It comes after a March meeting that brought key industry players, including SIA, NBFAA, CSAA, Honeywell, Bosch, Telular, DSC, ADT, Guardian and Vector Security, to the table with cable company representatives from Cox, Charter, Time Warner and others.

SecurityInfoWatch.com recently caught up with NBFAA's Executive Director Merlin Guilbeau to discuss what the industry has learned about VoIP.

"I think the issue of VoIP is becoming more prevalent," says Guilbeau. "I think there were initial thoughts that a fix or a filter would come along like there was in DSL, but that is not going to be the case."

Guilbeau added that the pace that the cable companies are installing VoIP services is much faster than the pace at which customers were switching to DSL. In fact, industry numbers from Time Warner say that by the end of this year, 2 million customers will have signed up with VoIP service. That number will be 8 million at the end of 2008 according to the company's estimates.

Those kind of growth numbers certainly mean that a change of business is in store for the alarm industry. But it's not just the alarm industry that will feel the pinch.

"I don't think we'll get burned," says Guilbeau. "I think we'll adapt. Our concern is for the consumers that our members service."

The danger comes partially from the prevalence of self-installed VoIP services -- such as those offered by Vonage and others – and from the possibility that some cable installers might be overlooking installation procedures which are essential to the continued service of an alarm system. But there are also inherent technology challenges in VoIP.

The NBFAA report details some of these top dangers, including the possibility of that an RJ-31X jack could be improperly wired to enable backfeeding. This possibility, which is a common wiring procedure for some VoIP installers, would put an alarm system on the wrong side of the home's communications system and thus would make the alarm system unable to seize the line in the event of an incident.