ADT hosted local and national media on a tour Wednesday of the port and city of Richmond, Calif., near San Francisco, where it is installing wireless video surveillance networks.

Editors and reporters clambered up four flights of stairs to a former control room at the port, where the capabilities of the new video surveillance system were demonstrated. Cameras from Axis Communications, Chelmsford, Mass., are linked by a mesh network from BelAir Networks, Kanata, Ontario, Canada, with analytics by ObjectVideo.

 

An ADT employee impersonating an intruder across the bay of the port from the control room was shown in detail by a camera on that side. A camera on the control room’s side was able to zoom in at another area across the bay and show it in high detail.

 

Storage capacity of the video, which is recorded at 15 images per second (ips), is 73 TB. It is transmitted from the mesh network by a wireless gigabit backhaul using 802.11a frequencies.

 

The port and city were toured to show the locations of some of the cameras and the wireless nodes.

 

Bill Lindsay, Richmond city manager, outlined his municipality’s plans for its surveillance system, construction of which is being completed. Homeland Security funds were obtained for the port, but the city is footing the bill itself for the cameras, which it hopes will reduce crime, vandalism and illegal trash dumping.