Vector Security Inc., Pittsburgh, Pa., announced that it entered into a strategic marketing relationship with Spacenet Inc., McLean, Va., to make managed network services available to Vector Security’s national accounts and commercial customers, and introduce Spacenet’s customers to the wide array of interactive security products and services available from Vector Security.

This arrangement will support various loss prevention, life safety and asset preservation applications from Vector Security, with a primary focus on broadband video monitoring. The arrangement allows Vector Security and Spacenet to focus on delivering their combined core competencies in an optimized way — today. Vector Security stated it will gain years of knowledge and experience from a proven provider, rather than develop these capabilities in-house over time. According to Michael Grady, executive vice president of Vector Security, “Bandwidth has become a major commodity in sustaining the increased level of data retailers commonly use to make key business decisions. Retailers are also required to address increasing levels of customer data security, and may be limited by gaps in connectivity assets in specific geographic markets.”

The Vector Security/Spacenet solution creates one point of accountability for retailers and provides proactive monitoring and support through VPNs, compliance services and secured hosting. Additionally, the services may also provide other desirable IT-based services such as VoIP, Wi-Fi, multicast and merchant connectivity.

“Retailers have been facing increased network problems related to capacity and reliability,” Grady said. “They’ve added more applications to collect an increasing amount of customer and insight data to help manage their razor-thin margins and remain profitable. At the same time, network security and PCI compliance demands have begun to overstretch their existing IT infrastructure. Many current collection and transmission platforms are simply nearing obsolescence or outright extinction.”

Brad Wise, senior vice president of Spacenet, said, “We are very pleased with our relationship with Vector Security. Spacenet’s Managed Network Services will be able to offer a significant value to their customer base. Our unique, agnostic approach and expertise in delivering scalable, tailored managed network services will give retailers the opportunity to have the network infrastructure they require with the bandwidth they need. Spacenet will also make their services available to manage a variety of traffic types and applications, including support for PCI compliance, on-site management support, Internet access, POS and video security, among many others.”

Looking towards the fast-moving pace of the loss prevention industry, Grady also believes that the Spacenet relationship will position Vector Security to serve customers’ future needs and added, “As an LP services vendor who strives to create innovative new solutions for our customers, we foresee a fast-developing connection between the networked management of various LP technologies, including alarm monitoring, video surveillance services, access control and electronic article surveillance. Today that needs to include a movement towards Physical Security Information Management (PSIM). In order to support this newest form of LP data integration, networks need to be developed in ways to embrace these benefits, not restrict or prohibit them.”

Grady also has a strong concern for the future of POTS lines, which traditionally have been the method of signal transmission for most commercial security systems. “The fact that, even today, most alarm systems are still being monitored by standard POTS lines placed a higher value on managed networks. And while these trends are more representative of consumer usage, the writing is on the wall for retailers who currently use POTS lines for alarm monitoring.”

For more information about Spacenet, visit www.spacenet.com.