CCTV across six towns for a regional council
Rising vandalism pushed a regional council into a surveillance rollout with no cabling to build on — and a crowded unlicensed spectrum to work around.
The problem
After repeated reports of vandalism to vehicles, public buildings and parks, the council needed surveillance across problem areas in six townships — to deter offenders, or better still identify them. Cabling infrastructure to the camera locations was non-existent and uneconomical to install, so every camera needed a wireless link back to the NVR at its town's council offices. A considerable number of existing private and public wireless links in the area were already creating interference on the unlicensed frequencies at the high points.
What was done
A wireless backhaul network was built to carry the CCTV traffic, linking close to 200 camera locations across distances of up to 15 km. Point-to-multipoint radios and antennas were selected for their efficiency and interference mitigation, which was the deciding factor given how congested the high sites already were.
How it turned out
The council now has visibility across the townships, with remote access available to police and contracted security agencies. The council reports a significant decrease in crime rates since the network and cameras went in — the source does not quantify the reduction.
“The local parks are being utilised more often, and we are not seeing as many people out on the streets during the night. These criminals know now they are being watched, and it's making our neighbourhoods feel safer.”
Deployed at the time
As named in the original case study. Some of it is superseded, or was never in our range.
- InfiNet Wireless point-to-multipoint radios and antennas — a brand we do not stock
What we'd specify today
Current equivalents from our catalogue for this kind of site — not a statement about the hardware installed.
Where this came from
Transcribed from iDatanet's published case study. The radios used were InfiNet Wireless, which we do not carry — the products listed are what we would specify from our current range for wide-area wireless backhaul, not a substitution for what was installed. The crime reduction is the council's own qualitative claim.