The Electronic Security Industry is buzzing with the anticipation and adoption of IP Video. Is the industry prepared for what may be about to dominate the new decade or will it fumble in the dark and make a mess of this potential gold mine?
There is no doubting that technology has come a long way since the era of analog CCTV. IP Video now provides us with features that security installers could only have dreamed about a few years back. This new technology allows us to get images in front of security monitoring and dispatch operators in much less time and in much better quality than before, but what happens next is a complete unknown.
Going back a decade or so, when an alarm signal arrived on the operator screen in front of them, they would make a call to the protected premises to offer the owner a chance to cancel the alarm. If a call went unanswered, or the callee was unable to provide a cancellation password, the relevant response authorities were called.
False alarms were rampant and the police insisted that multiple alarm signals from different zones of the security system should be received before an operator could make a call to request a response. This improved things slightly and is effectively where the industry remains today.
Those responsible for starting the IP Video buzz are promising that all of this will change when alarm events are accompanied by video images from on-site cameras. Instead of having two lines of text on a terminal screen like “Perimeter Alarm Zone 3” and “Burglar Alarm Zone 6” as their only evidence of an unauthorized entry into a protected premises, the operator may be able see someone entering a room through a perimeter door and then walking quickly through a room.
The manufacturers of all the new IP Video products and solutions are rightly very proud that they have been able to provide this additional valuable information to operators and they see their work as done. From the operator’s perspective, they are really not that much wiser based on the new evidence they have been presented with. The operator has no way of knowing whether the person in the picture is an unwanted intruder, or whether it is the property owner unwittingly creating a false alarm.
The operator still has to make a call to the premises and unless that person in the images answers the call and provides a cancellation password, the operator has no alternative but to accept the event as a genuine burglary and request that police be dispatched. The video in this example was of little or no benefit to the operator.
The industry is now challenged with developing new procedural methods of fully utilizing the new technologies to prevent false alarms, otherwise it risks plundering the huge opportunity that stands before it.
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