Wireless Surveillance Protects Highly Populated South African Residential Community
LOS GATOS, Calif.-(Business Wire)-February 17, 2009 - Burgundy Estate, a new and exclusive community in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa, has deployed a wireless mesh network to ensure the safety of the private community while maintaining an open and public atmosphere. The Firetide mesh network, designed and deployed by Satinlink Wireless, also provides a level of public wireless Internet broadband access and VoIP for residents never achieved in South Africa with such technology.
Burgundy Estate, dedicated to providing a healthy, outdoor lifestyle for residents, is a self-contained community that includes nearly 6,000 homes, its own schools, parks, shopping mall, restaurants, day care facility and athletic clubs. Burgundy Estate is not a gated, tightly access-controlled area. Rather, two public roads expose the residents to constant through-traffic, presenting unique security challenges. Additionally, the community’s rapid development has been equally demanding. Burgundy Estate expects more than 15,000 residents by 2010, despite being established in only 2006 and covering three-quarters of a square mile in size.
“The developers tasked us with securing Burgundy Estate’s residents without closing it off to the public and creating a ‘Fort Knox’ scenario. Simultaneously, we needed to provide public Wi-Fi access for voice, video and data transmission, all on a quickly deployable and highly scalable network to keep up with the community’s explosive growth,” said Audrey De Jongh, managing director of integrator Satinlink Wireless.
To ensure tight security and allow residents to enjoy the open parks, stroll to restaurants and shopping, and play golf, Burgundy Estate has placed electric fencing, 24-hour patrols and a designated rapid-response team on site at all times. Most importantly, these security efforts are supported by 24-hour, real-time video surveillance blanketing the community.
“We were able to place cameras in areas we previously thought were too far for wireless equipment to reach or too expensive to trench with fiber,” Audrey De Jongh continued. “The Firetide network really exceeded our expectations as it delivers the highest possible bandwidth and speeds every telecommunications operator dreams of.”
Designated security officers can now instantly access cameras installed in each of Burgundy Estate’s streets from their patrol cars, even while mobile, which is a first for South Africa. The footage is streamed into an LCD screen or laptop, and provides real-time situational awareness for the security personnel. Municipal police officers will soon be able to access an electronic in-field reporting system for information including mug shots and digitized fingerprints while on patrol.
“Burgundy Estate's Wireless Mesh Network was a tremendously rewarding experience, which has set a technologically innovative trend in South Africa and Africa. We built a best of breed wireless security and Wi-Fi access network for an estate that prides itself on its technology innovation. It has been exciting to demonstrate wireless mesh as a proven, cost-effective and high-performance solution. We’ve effectively set the stage for security as South Africa hosts the upcoming soccer World Cup in 2010," said Paul Edwards, Satinlink's CEO. “Firetide’s wireless mesh networks deliver the industry-leading broadband performance, capacity and reliability that is crucial for the next generation of public/private communications networks.”
Mesh networking allows surveillance systems to be positioned almost anywhere to obtain the best point of view. Wireless technology makes it easy to gradually grow the network to cover new areas. Multipoint-to-multipoint (mesh) systems are inherently resilient; redundant links eliminate single points of failure associated, while multiple paths overcome line-of-sight issues. Video quality is paramount, too; without enough bandwidth, cameras cannot deliver evidence-grade video or support video analytics. Today's wireless mesh technologies rival the results of wired; in fact, Firetide wireless networks routinely deliver courtroom-quality video, indistinguishable from wire.
“Burgundy Estate exemplifies how technology is transforming law and crime prevention enforcement, and that mobile wireless mesh networks are quickly becoming a critical part of today’s security efforts,” stated Bo Larsson, Firetide’s chief executive officer. “This deployment provides convincing testament to the superior technology and reliability of Firetide’s mesh infrastructure, and it also validates that real-time wireless video surveillance is both economical and practical, putting advanced applications and services within reach of the merged private and public arena.”
About Firetide Inc.
Firetide is the leading provider of wireless mesh and access networks that enable concurrent video, voice and data for municipal, public safety and enterprise applications. Firetide provides a reliable high performance wireless infrastructure and access solution for video surveillance, Internet access, public safety networks and temporary networks wherever rapid deployment, mobility and ease of installation are required. Headquartered in Los Gatos, Calif., Firetide is a privately held company with worldwide product distribution. www.firetide.com.
About Satinlink Wireless
Satinlink Wireless is a South African integrator of wireless mesh network infrastructure, with a principal goal of truly delivering the "last mile" and bridging the digital divide. Satinlink Wireless's leadership and teams are composed of visionary women and men from various cultures and high tech professional backgrounds, whom have fully committed themselves to deliver the World's Leading Wireless Mesh Technology Networks. Headquarters in Cape Town, South Africa, Satinlink is a privately held company. www.satinlinkwireless.com.
About Satinlink
Satinlink is Firetide's official distributor in South Africa and Africa and leading provider through its VARs of wireless mesh and access networks that enable concurrent video, voice and data for municipal, public safety and enterprise applications. Headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa and represented through Africa, Europe, Middle East and Asia, Satinlink is a privately held company. www.satinlink.com.
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