The wireless age is upon us. Remember the golden era when television sets began to saturate the residential landscape? Then came personal computers. Now it’s the cell phone’s turn. And with the cell phone revolution, does anybody really remember phone numbers anymore? Let’s face it, people like the convenience of their wireless phones. So why can’t security directors rely on a wireless signal for their security systems – from video surveillance to access control solutions. “If you were to ask me two years ago, I would have said wireless was something of the future. But I think it is real now. If you look at the standard digital video recorder market today, whether it is banking or retail, there has been a five- or six-year learning curve on it as well as a progression in technology. On the transportation side especially, wireless has had a two-to-three year learning curve now, and it has gotten to the point where it is becoming a real, viable business solution,” says Peter Strom, chief operations officer, March Networks, Ottawa, Canada.
According to SmartSight Technologies, Quebec, Canada, the market for systems and solutions based on video compression of 802.11 wireless Ethernet standards is exploding. Digital, wireless video is quickly becoming the transmission of choice among law enforcement, education, retail as well as commercial and residential monitoring. SmartSight’s video solutions include CCTV and IP networks that deliver real-time video content over large area networks (LAN), wireless LAN, wide area networks (WAN) and Internet and 2.5/3 G, or next generation, cellular networks. Some of the most popular forms of wireless video transmission are the 802.11 Ethernet standards, which include Wi-Fi, and other proprietary forms of wireless. Recently, SmartSight has an outdoor wireless bridge, a license-free video bridge that is used to wirelessly link SmartSight’s S1100w wireless servers or its series of Ethernet video servers in remote locations to a local Ethernet LAN. Several bridges can be used to create multiple video links covering a large geographical area.