Council commissions CCTV and Wi-Fi network

Liverpool City Council’s multipurpose CCTV and Wi-Fi network promises to improve community safety and increase council efficiency.

Liverpool, in Sydney’s southwest, is the fastest growing city in NSW. Its current population of nearly 200,000 is expected to almost double over the next 10 years. Safety and amenity are crucial elements in Liverpool City Council’s strategy and vision for a more vibrant and safer city for everyone to enjoy.

For the council to achieve its aspirations, it needed to promote a more vibrant city centre; one that is active, safer - particularly at night - and better connected.

As Liverpool City Council (LCC) acted on its vision, it secured federal funding for a CCTV and free Wi-Fi network to support redevelopment and re-urbanisation initiatives in the CBD.

Liverpool Police Commander Peter Gillam said the city’s new CCTV network would help police monitor public safety hotspots within the CBD: “It will provide 24-hour recording of local streets, retail precincts and parks across central Liverpool and act as a valuable deterrent against all types of antisocial behaviour.”

Ned Mannoun, Liverpool City Council Mayor, explained: “It was important that we commissioned a quality, reliable and value-for-money system. With this in mind, Council undertook an extensive tender process, evaluating 10 submissions.”

Scalable platform

The high-profile project was awarded to SAT to design, supply, install and service. SAT is an Australian-owned and -operated radio-communications consultancy and engineering specialist.

SAT proposed a turnkey solution, described by its director, Dale Stacey, as being “futuristic and robust, as its innovative ringed topology delivers a highly resilient network”.

“Where it stands out is that its design and extremely high bandwidth have resulted in much broader benefits than just safety. Within the budget, it will meet the future requirements of Council - it’s about forward thinking, flexibility and scalability.”

The network comprises five 1 Gbps microwave radio rings - based on 25 of NEC’s latest high-capacity, e-band iPasolink EX Microwave units - that link 30 cameras, the police station, Council’s administration building and more than 60 Wi-Fi access points.

“What made this quite a complex architecture was the number of elements and sub-systems that had to integrate with the NEC common platform,” said Stacey.

This project is based on the new IEEE-802.11ac standards, which deliver, at 300 Mbps, the latest mobility and mapping features required to meet the growing connectivity expectations of users. The radio platform is scalable to 2 Gbps enabling Council to double its capacity without changing hardware.

Until now, it has been the ongoing OpEx rather than the upfront CapEx that has constrained the uptake of networks such as LCCs. The NEC e-band solution operates in a specific, self-regulated frequency that attracts only a low-cost ACMA licence of a mere $20 per month, per link.

Stacey endorsed the NEC microwave units as “coming from a very reliable pedigree and, combined with the support of NEC’s knowledgeable technical people, they provide the perfect backbone for this application”.

All-in-one solution

The project has delivered three channels of simultaneous customer traffic - CCTV, Wi-Fi and Council corporate data - over the same private backhaul network. This ‘three for the price of one’ solution has succeeded in driving down the per-unit lifecycle cost.

“We have multiple channels all within the cost of a single piece of infrastructure. The project meets all the criteria for responsible investment by Council and our aim to build a tech-savvy city for the future,” said Mannoun.

This is one of the first integrated Wi-Fi and CCTV solutions in Australia and certainly one of the most advanced. As a state-of-the-art crime-fighting tool, it allows easy monitoring by police and other authorities. Its surveillance capacity is also expected to reduce vandalism with the flow-on effect of cutting Council’s security and maintenance costs.

The adaptive modulation of the NEC radio equipment results in smaller dish and antenna size. This provides not only infrastructure cost savings but also reduces wind load and, thereby, the force on rooftops and poles for better safety, as well as the highly sensitive issue of visual impact.

This standard, repeatable configuration makes it a low-risk solution that is extremely strong from both a management and maintenance perspective. “Collectively, between LCC, SAT and NEC, we’ve created an all-in-one solution to take to other councils and enhance the amenity of communities around Australia,” said Stacey.