Quality boost for mobile CCTV

According to the British Crime Survey, there were approximately 2,731,000 incidents of criminal damage in England and Wales recorded during 2006, the perpetrators of which will in many cases have escaped justice.

It’s not just individuals on the street that suffer from this type of crime – a huge number of organisations in the public and private sector continue to be affected by these incidents, and face the ongoing challenge of ensuring their security solutions are capable of deterring potential wrongdoers, in addition to helping apprehend those who choose to undertake criminal activities regardless.

CCTV remains one of the key methods of dealing with crime, particularly for capturing vandals or burglars, and the development of convergence and Internet Protocol networks has gone a long way to solving some of the problems traditionally associated with video security surveillance.

Organisations can now bring their video traffic onto the same network as their data communications, without suffering a reduction in quality – a move that significantly reduces maintenance costs, and also enables greater flexibility in how feeds are handled.

But though a substantial number of organisations will have some form of CCTV in operation, the lack of flexibility often makes these solutions insufficient for monitoring all crimes effectively.

For example, while the cameras may capture a main entrance break-in, other activities – especially mobile operations – are far harder to keep track of.

Whether it’s a van containing expensive equipment, an off-site construction project, or even a local authority trying to follow drug dealing in the area, ensuring adequate surveillance is generally a complex and costly task.

Using mobile cameras would sound like an obvious solution to this problem, increasing the number of locations that can be observed both at fixed sites and across mobile operations, while making it far easier for organisations to relocate equipment as needed.

However, a handful of organisations have in the past examined wireless CCTV, only to find that the solution has been woefully inadequate – either the picture quality has been poor and grainy, or the image refresh rate has been too slow, or in the worst case scenario, both of these issues.

The problems were not due to the cameras themselves, but rather that the technology used to transmit the images back to base could not handle the amount of data effectively.

Thankfully, however, this situation is now being rectified, with the rapid rollout of new high-speed downlink packet access technology (HSDPA, or Super-3G as it’s sometimes known) changing expectations about wireless data delivery.

HSDPA – which is currently being offered by all the major UK mobile operators – for the first time offers a wireless technology capable of matching fixed broadband links for speed and reliability.

Essentially, it can handle a much greater volume of data with a much faster delivery time than any wireless technology previously available. For local authorities, corporations and other organisations, this means that high-quality video footage can now be transmitted back to them in real-time, from even the most remote locations.

One early user of HSDPA is Manchester City Council, which uses a remote portable camera from security provider Sitewatch plugged into an HSDPA router, covertly positioned at suspected areas of anti-social activity.

Often the presence of a camera is enough of a deterrent, however in situations where the illegality continues, the crime is captured and transmitted in a high-quality video feed, which can then be used to help apprehend and convict the guilty parties.

In addition to this, because the video feed is received in real-time by a 24-hour control room, it may be possible to send out officers there and then to catch the criminals red-handed.

Furthermore, as and when criminals get wise and move to a different spot, the camera can quickly be repositioned without any complex or lengthy installation procedure.

Police or other authorities can simply pick up the equipment and take it to where it’s needed next.

Equally, HSDPA already has a very wide coverage area, as it is essentially a software upgrade for the existing 3G networks, which cover the vast majority of the UK. The upshot of this is that the same high-quality real-time video transmissions are even possible from truly remote areas.

This is something that cannot be said of other emerging wireless technologies such as WiMAX, which now looks destined to be suitable only for large urban areas.

What’s more, deploying WiMAX will require substantial further investment in network base stations, while in the case of HSDPA the investment is far lower, and, indeed, is already being made.

There’s still a question within the UK mobile operators regarding appropriate tariffs for 24/7 HSDPA network usage.

Tariffs have been devised for the consumer market, but consumer devices are not generally require to continually download high quantities of data. As yet there is no mobile operator offering a set price for unlimited downloads – needed in order to support cameras that are in constant operation.

The upshot of this is that large-scale camera deployments may not yet be viable financially for the majority of organisations.

That said, as Manchester City Council is already demonstrating, the current tariffs on offer are still sufficiently affordable to justify the use the cameras at specific times and locations.

Given the huge cost of crime to UK organisations, both financially and in terms of resources, as well as the impact it has on the UK citizens themselves, it’s vital that CCTV is flexible enough to deter, capture offences and help apprehend the perpetrators. Thanks to HSDPA, the UK now has the technology to ensure that this is the case.