Swindon Council leads the way in implementing a quality low-cost wireless CCTV security solution

Swindon Council in Wiltshire was faced with the problem of needing to implement an improved and expanded Closed Circuit Television [CCTV] network.

With traditional cabled solutions, the key issues facing the council were the high costs of installation and ongoing annual leased line charges for each camera. Such charges were eating into over £30,000 of Swindon Council's annual budget and this was set to rocket with the increased demands for public safety.

However, after consultation with Initial Electronic Security Systems Ltd, part of the global Rentokil Initial Group and 802 DGlobal, a value-added specialist in the UK wireless, security and IP CCTV marketplace, Swindon Council has introduced wireless technology for a complete, high-performance, secure CCTV solution, which totally removes on-going leased line charges.

"Wireless technology is still viewed in some areas with suspicion due to historical problems with security, operational distance, line-of-sight demands and quality of bandwidth. However our aim is to educate the market that wireless technology has moved on and we can now offer secure, long-range, non-line-of-sight, high-quality bandwidth solutions. This opens up huge cost-savings for local government," said Tim Close, Sales and Marketing Director at 802.

Swindon Council has set up 5 new wireless IP CCTV sites covering a home for the elderly, hostels and shopping areas and will be migrating their existing leased line sites to Wi-LAN's wireless solution. They chose Wi-LAN VIP technology, with its own proprietary protocols and chipsets to create an inherently secure network. The Wi-LAN solution also met the project's criteria for modular expansion and rapid, simple deployment.

With CCTV becoming an integral part of crime control policy and community consciousness, promoted by both police and politicians, Initial anticipate high interest from other local government bodies around the UK.

“It makes sense to go wireless and we can assist local government in achieving bespoke affordable solutions with low maintenance costs,” said Jodi Wernham, CCTV Consultancy Engineer for Initial.

There are currently an estimated 300,000 cameras in the UK, covering shopping areas, housing estates, roads, car parks, hospitals and public facilities, with most towns and cities facing increased CCTV surveillance requirements.

Why Choose Wi-LAN technology?

User Interface Security
Prevents unauthorised configuration by assigning a password to each radio [node]. Without this password the VIP 110-24 cannot be reconfigured.

Radio RF Interface Security
Radio RF Interface Security prevents unauthorised users from entering the VIP network. An unauthorised user must be able to match radio frequency plans, which are made up of two independent channels. There are 30 channels in the standard VIP 110-24, creating 900 combinations of frequency.

The VIP 110-24 has a 32-character network ID that can be configured by the network administrator. Once this ID is invoked in the parent radio then any remote radios must have the same Network ID code.

Since the ID code is just a number, why can't anyone buy a VIP 110-24 radio and try every combination?

The process for changing the Network ID number requires 5 seconds to change the combination and reboot the VIP radio. Thus it would take 680 years to try every combination.

Data Encryption
The end-user can further configure security at a network level. Data Encryption Standard [DES] models featuring symmetric or public key encryption are used throughout the world. Wi-LAN does not recommend RC4 protocol employed in the WEP standard due to the inherent ease with which it is defeated.

Line-of-sight [LOS] and Operational Distance
Wi-LAN’s patented VINE technology is a new approach to wireless networking that overcomes LOS obstacles and minimises up-front costs. Historically if a CCTV camera is non-LOS with the central site, it would require a new base station to be set-up at the centre of a new cell and a backbone connection between the two base stations, which can prove very costly.

With Wi-LAN patented VINE technology, any VIP 110-24 radio node in the central site network can have a dual function. In addition to transmitting information from its own site, it can also relay information from a remote CCTV camera site, simply by attaching a second wide-focus antenna to the VIP 110-24 box. The only requirement for a new node to become connected to the network is to have Radio Frequency connectivity to any node already in the network. This means that you can build cells with effective diameters of up to 40km.

Bandwidth Quality of Service
Even though the bandwidth can be shared fairly between all active radios, the VINE protocol supports different levels of quality of service. The network manager may assign values for the Committed Information Rates [CIR] and Maximum Data Rates of each radio, separately for inbound and outbound directions. When a radio is using its full CIR, it will always be guaranteed this throughput. However, if the radio is not active, the committed bandwidth is not wasted, but can be shared among all the other radios.

For more information, please make a sales enquiry.