BridgeWave Communications, a supplier of gigabit wireless solutions, announced that Redbridge Council has deployed multiple GE80/GE80X links to improve and extend the delivery of video surveillance services to the London Borough of Redbridge. The newly deployed links were needed to improve the reliability of the existing network and extend services to remote areas not serviced by the fiber network.
BridgeWave Communications, a supplier of gigabit wireless solutions, announced that Redbridge Council has deployed multiple GE80/GE80X links to improve and extend the delivery of video surveillance services to the London Borough of Redbridge. The newly deployed links were needed to improve the reliability of the existing network and extend services to remote areas not serviced by the fiber network.
Redbridge is a 22-square mile borough in an area northeast of London. Redbridge Council is comprised of 8,500 staff members dedicated to providing government support and services to a diverse population of more than 238,000 people. The surveillance network infrastructure was comprised of lower frequency unlicensed radios that were no longer providing the consistent reliability needed to support the increasing bandwidth needs of the borough. As additional sites were brought online, interference with the existing systems increased due to the limited frequency agility of the unlicensed 5 GHz systems, which in turn caused degraded camera image quality.
Redbridge Council needed a way to deploy cameras to trouble spots throughout the borough as part of an overall effort to deter crime and provide rapid response for emergency situations. In addition, cameras were needed in outlying towns that were too far away from the main town center where the fiber network resides. Extending the existing fiber backbone was not an option due to the prohibitive costs, complicated logistics and the time delays associated with installing fiber.
"We needed a quick and cost effective way to improve the reliability of our existing network and also provide services to some of our remote areas not connected to the fiber network," said Lawrie Morrisson, Group Manager - Electrical Engineering Redbridge Council.
With help from 802Global, a value-added distributor in the U.K. specializing in digital wireless and surveillance solutions, BridgeWave's 80 GHz gigabit wireless links, GE80/GE80X, were deployed in a ring configuration with additional links providing off-fiber connectivity to remote towns. With the wireless bridges installed, Redbridge Council realizes fiber-like performance. It has ensured the highest network availability to service their communities with a solution that will grow with their needs into the future.
"To date the system has worked well for us. It's proved to be a reliable and cost effective method of enabling CCTV even in our remotest areas," Morrisson said. "The remote areas just wouldn't have got CCTV if we hadn't deployed this system because anything else just would have been too expensive."