Digital Video Surveillance Systems and Broadband
Internet
When it comes to video surveillance systems many
customers are looking to monitor employees, customer or property.
Many times one of the first questions customers ask is Since I have
high speed internet at both home and the office, can I monitor this
myself? Although access to broadband internet is become more affordable and more
accessible than every before we need to understand the remote
video monitoring still faces several challenges. When
transporting video over a network one must ensure that the
network was designed to support and handle such traffic. Simply
having a 6MB 10 MB residential broadband connection like DSL
or High Speed Cable in most cases does not meet the needed
quality of broadband service to support remote video
surveillance. Most cheap broadband connections struggle to
support applications like VoIP calling, web surfing, email and
streaming audio. These applications require much less bandwidth
than that of remote video monitoring.
When it comes to selecting the correct broadband connection it
is recommended that you first consider a data T1 line. Depending
on the number of video cameras being monitored a data T1 will
provide the quality of service over the network to support as
many as 10-30 cameras before bandwidth and quality becomes an
issue, be sure to check current broadband prices in your area. The chart below will give you an idea of the number of
cameras you can use with the different types of internet
connections.
-
ADSL (1MB 6 MB) up to 2 cameras
-
SDSL (1.2 MB 1.5 MB) up to 4 cameras
-
High Speed Cable (3 MB 10 MB) up to 6-8 cameras
-
Data T1 (1.5 MB) up to 25-30 cameras
-
Bonded Data T1 (3 MB) up to 50 cameras
-
Ethernet (10 MB) up to 100-150 cameras
We are seeing companies like AT&T, Verizon and the Cable
provider starting to roll out much faster and high quality
broadband connects some as much as 100 MB with fiber to the curb
or building location.
