As featured in the August 2013 print issue of Professional Security, OCS is to supply, install and deploy the communication infrastructure in a fibre-to-wireless switch-out and IP camera upgrade in the Lincolnshire town of Boston.
The council has sought to reduce its overall OPEX costs over the lifetime of the contract. Through its “invest to save” policy, where the council acquires central government funding, Boston had to remove the associated costs of a traditional analogue CCTV system and reduce expensive fibre leasing costs. The brief from the council was precise and exacting and Boston’s confidence in the ability of both partnership companies to deliver a workable solution secured the contract.
Rather than procuring the services of a security consultant, Boston Borough Council favoured working directly with OCS, which in turn used the wireless CCTV product company, Wavesight, to manage the physical surveys, network design and layout schematics and overall commissioning of the system. During the tender process, the council looked for CCTV over Internet Protocol (IP) that was robust, scalable and future-proof, that would meet capacity demands for years. A 50 per cent reduction in OPEX costs, primarily maintenance and transmission, was also required over the four-year contract. OCS challenged Wavesight to design a wireless communications infrastructure to migrate Boston council’s CCTV services from fibre to wireless. Out-of-date hardware, such as ageing CRT monitors in the control room and a legacy of analogue cameras, needed to be replaced to achieve cost-saving. Wavesight, with OCS Security Services, recommended overall:
– 103 licence-exempt Wavesight wireless radios (WaveSPRINT (87), WaveMAX-N (6), WaveSPRINT- TURBO MP (6), WaveSPRINT TURBO (4) and WaveFLOW (6))
– 61 new Panasonic IP CCTV cameras
– A series of Panasonic network recorders
– An application connecting three main buildings in the town – Pilgrim Hospital, Assembly Rooms (a night club) and the Town Hall
It’s due to be installed in three phases. At the core of the infrastructure are three town-centre buildings (Pilgrim Hospital, Assembly Rooms and the Town Hall), connected in a ring using WaveMAX-N wireless IP transceivers. WaveMAX-N links are suitable the firms claim for the backhaul transport of high-resolution real-time video and particularly suitable it’s claimed for use with high-resolution megapixel cameras. The CCTV cameras will be connected to all three buildings locally and each building is connected using two WaveMAX-N links providing a fully redundant wireless system. According to the firms this type of design eliminates network downtime caused by a single point of failure and will ensure that sites will remain available even if service is interrupted to one network. The council required this network redundancy.
A further two colleges, an industrial estate on the outskirts of the town and the Fenside housing estate will all be covered. All images at the edge will go wirelessly to the core network and then back-hauled to the control room in the Town Hall for monitoring and recording. The firms say this provides the equivalent of a leased fibre service, while lowering operating costs and ensuring connectivity to the control room in the centre of town.
The contractors point to the council becoming the sole owner of a dedicated, highly secure, private WLAN infrastructure, capable of growing with client demands, and it is claimed with minimal additional investment. The flexibility offered by wireless means that further plans and connections (such as remote car parks and other temporary cameras) can take much less time than with fixed cables laid in the ground. The typical time required to plan a deployment can be as short as one day, while deploying a CCTV network can take as little as a few hours.
Steve Clift, Public Sector Sales Manager Security Services at OCS, said: “For us, the decision to involve Wavesight in this project was an easy one as they’ve successfully implemented many town centre surveillance projects for local authorities across the country. Not to mention the reliability of their products, which in our experience as the integrator, are one of the best ruggedised IP links on the market with the lowest failure rates. What’s also interesting about this new partnership, particularly on this project, is the council challenged the traditional way of working. Normally, a consultant would be employed by the council to facilitate the project, but OCS took on this role with assistance from Wavesight as they specialise in wireless CCTV networks. The council recognised this highly effective combination and duly awarded us the contract.”
