Recognizing how important security and safety is to its customers, SEGRO, a property investment and development company headquartered in the U.K., has installed a CCTV system at the Kings Norton Business Centre, Birmingham. Rather than hard-wiring the system, SEGRO employed a Fluidmesh 2200 wireless mesh network to help reduce the cost and time of the installation.
Kings Norton Business Centre, the premier business center in south Birmingham, is located on
a 60 acre site. It is wholly owned by SEGRO and meets the business space needs of a diverse
range of companies.
Looking to improve its services and facilities, SEGRO surveyed its customers at the Kings
Norton Business Centre. Responses showed security and fear of crime as their biggest
concerns. It was time to increase security, but, with no ducts on the site and the cost of
installing them prohibitive, SEGRO sought a solution that wouldn’t rely on hard-wiring.
MITIE Security Systems was chosen to carry out the installation as they offered a wireless
solution based on IP rather than radio. MITIE installed eight Pelco Spectra IV dome cameras,
all mounted on Altron columns around the business park. Each column has Optex Redwall
4010s detectors used to detect activity and automatically move cameras to preset positions.
The system uses Fluidmesh wireless IP transmission to relay the signal back to the control
room on-site. PelcoNet converters were chosen to convert the analog signals from the cameras
to IP. A Dedicated Micros DVIP digital recorder records all incoming information and links the
system to the Business Watch control room in Slough from where the site is monitored.
Dave Brazenell, Sales Manager for MITIE Security Systems, explains “We regularly use Pelco
cameras because of their reliability and we use Norbain to supply them because of their
excellent service and fast response times. We were initially looking at using a system that
utilized radio signals, but our account manager at Norbain suggested we use IP and this played
an important part in us winning the contract in the end.”
The Fluidmesh 2200 series is employed at the site because it’s the only wireless mesh
networking product designed and manufactured specifically for security, video-surveillance and
mission-critical condition monitoring applications. Because it takes advantage of two radios
simultaneously, operating one radio in the 2.4GHz range, and the other one in the 5GHz
range, it minimizes latency and doubles the available bandwidth. The whole system is also self
healing, so if there is an incident such as a power cut, it will automatically restore the network
to full capacity with no external intervention.
Although the Fluidmesh technology was new to everyone involved, the company provided
superior technical support and worked closely with MITIE. Together they earned the
endorsement of James Sherwood, Surveyor for SEGRO, who says “I’d definitely use the
technology again at another of SEGRO’s properties.”
With the system now up and running, there is a new sense of security around the business
center. “CCTV is a great deterrent and the system gives people using the center the additional
benefit of a visual sense of security and safety,” Sherwood adds. “This is what is most
important to us as a business so we’re very happy with the results we’ve achieved.”
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