The Challenge
When Medway Borough Council was seeking a cost-effective way to monitor schools across the borough out-of-hours, they consulted CCTV experts TJW Electrical. An innovative solution was developed by TJW's IT consultant based on Dedicated Micros' DS2 multiplexers.
Steve Craddock at TJW explains: "This installation would formerly have required setting up a bespoke network based on miles of fibre optic cabling, the costs of which would run into hundreds of thousands of pounds."
The Solution
"Because the DS2 runs on the Council's existing broadband network, it required no additional infrastructure. Its built-in software means that the images can be viewed and the cameras controlled from anywhere in the country. "Out of school hours, the schools' security monitoring systems transfer to Medway BC's central monitoring station that is responsible for the town centre as well." In the past, operators had to dial in to view every individual school, which was tedious, time consuming and, obviously, introduced the margin for human error. It also meant that images could only be viewed from one school at a time. "With the introduction of networked CCTV via broadband that has no restrictive bandwidth limitations, live images from every school are kept running permanently on the monitoring station's bank of screens. When necessary, an operator can select a school and transfer the images straight to his or her personal screen at the touch of a button for instant verification."
The speed of response and ease of access to the images across all schools has resulted in several drug-related arrests. Careful camera positioning and immediate operator verification through the capacity to view all sites simultaneously means that critical images can be transferred directly to the police who can take action straightaway.
"Because all images are digitally 'signed' and tagged with unit ID, time and date information, they cannot be tampered with and can stand up as evidence in court."
