The Highlands of Scotland have a new council CCTV system, reaching from Fort William to Wick. Vemotion were brought in to help make a system affordable and able to operate despite the poor mobile phone signal in much of the region. With just one public space site left to go, the project is now all but completed.
Stewart McCone, CEO of Vemotion, says: “The Highlands job was a significant undertaking. For starters, the geographical area being covered is huge. It’s 168 miles, or a four hour drive, from Wick in the north to Fort William in the south. Secondly, we had to contend with limited infrastructure in much of the area we were working in. While Inverness has a good infrastructure, the Scottish Highlands are one of the remotest areas in Britain and obviously this posed a number of challenges. I’m delighted we were able to meet each of these, and demonstrate the abilities of Vemotion.”
With a CCTV control centre in Inverness, the challenge was finding a way in which to provide live coverage of such remote areas. While fibre and radio options were looked into first, the costs proved prohibitive. The project was awarded to Vemotion. Gary Black, Communications Manager of Highland Council, says: “Thanks to Vemotion, we have the results and the system we needed in an effective and affordable package. When you factor in the comprehensive three year maintenance package too, using Vemotion was simply a no-brainer from a financial perspective. The system had to work and Vemotion has simply exceeded expectations. The products are great and Stewart and his team are first class. They are one of the few companies I have ever worked with who came prepared to prove they could deploy a working system.
“The results have revolutionised the control room. The room is staffed by council employees and they are delighted. Image quality is excellent and we can now view from one central location and co-ordinate the necessary responses throughout the areas we are responsible for.
“I can view the feeds on my office PC and even on my mobile phone. This means that no matter where I am, if someone calls with a problem or a question, I can immediately access the camera in question and take a look, even take direct control, if I need to.”
With the remaining public space site set to be completed imminently, Vemotion will now turn their attention to a new traffic management scheme being introduced, and are looking forward to completing the project for the council in coming months.
About the firm
Vemotion specialises in compression and transmission of live video over wireless and wired networks, for a variety of purposes including tele-medicine. Visit http://www.vemotion.com/.
