£1.3m IP CCTV network focuses on crime

Can IP networks improve security?

North Lanarkshire Council is to deploy a £1.3m IP-based CCTV network.

Telewest Business will supply the needs of the council's new Central Monitoring Infrastructure for viewing, management and recording of multiple CCTV schemes throughout the region.

The network will link all of the police stations that are using the system back to a central location.

Councillor Tom Maginnis, convener of the council's economic regeneration committee, said in a statement: "CCTV is a proven crime deterrent, and implementing an IP solution allows us to expand on this by leveraging the existing network and CCTV infrastructure to provide management, viewing and recording over IP.

"The cost and resource rationalisation is significant for us, the potential applications are vast and the installation will undoubtedly help combat crime in the area."

A 1Gbps fibre network will be used for the transmission of high quality MPEG CCTV video streams, voice and data traffic.

According to a recent survey sponsored by Comunica, two-thirds of businesses are already using IP networks to improve physical security.

IP networks will enable companies to monitor and control systems and buildings using card readers, biometrics and access systems such as CCTV, all from a web interface.

And a third of the IT directors surveyed said, that as a result of being able to control physical security systems over IP, this will become their responsibility instead of the facilities or operations departments.