Chapter 16 - Video Surveillance; More Video Than You Ever Wanted To Know

This isn’t a how-to article on video surveillance since even my neighbor, the non-technical guy, installed his own system. Most of us have an understanding of how an IP based video surveillance network works. What we want to cover is why all this phenomenal bandwidth we are creating takes video surveillance to another level and why that may or may not be a good thing.
Video surveillance cameras used to use terms like CIF (352x288 pixel resolution) and 4CIF (702x576). Computers used resolutions like VGA (640x480) and SVGA (1024x768). The common denominator in all these is the 4x3 screen ratio. Movie makers marched to their own drums with 16:9 ratios until the standard today is the 1080 level (1920x1080).
With the integration of computers and movies, it was obvious that compression methodology needed to be applied due to the limits of CD-ROMs and bandwidth. Various JPEG and MPEG compressions were developed until MPEG-2 became the most universally used compression method for DVD. However, bandwidth and storage limitations along with increased processor power drove compression through MPEG-4 (still one of the most popular) and others to the current standard of H.264.
So how does this relate to wireless? In the past and all around the country, cameras over wireless were either a very low resolution (CIF), high-compression (blocky or blurry), or had a low frame-rate (5-10 frames per second or fps). A lot of systems with remote locations, like SCADA locations, didn’t even try to move video over the wireless system. Instead they stuck an analog recorder locally with digital output, and then only monitored 1 or 2 of the cameras at a time remotely, regardless of how many were on site, due to bandwidth limitations. Keeping in mind all the bandwidth we have proven we can deliver over wireless systems from the past few articles, the question becomes, what can we now do in the real world? 3 years ago, we deployed a video analytic system with 48 cameras across 100 square miles in North Las Vegas and Boulder City, Nevada using a Puretech PureActiv system and SkyPilot 4.9GHz mesh system, so it’s not a new concept. These cameras deliver CIF resolution at about 12fps due to storage limitations. Since multi-megapixel cameras are the next hottest thing and since I’m involved in one of these projects right, I can tell you where we are going next.
Start with the idea that multi-megapixel IP cameras are now on the market and are cost-effective. For example, a 1080i outdoor camera from Axis like the 3334 or 1755 cost around $1500 or less. There are many other products out there that are even less expensive but I would test them to make sure they can deliver the frame rates you expect under similar conditions. We found that in a couple of the less expensive cameras, they could deliver no more than 12fps even though they were rated at 30fps in that particular resolution mode.
The biggest issue is, how do you use all that video quality? For live displays, we are probably going to have to limit live viewing to CIF resolutions to get 16 cameras on a single display. With 50 cameras, you might need 5 displays, for reduced size images and one for a full size image might be one way to set it up. This kind of negates having HD video. You can use whatever variation you want from this, even if you want a whole wall of monitors. No matter what you do with a few cameras, there will be point where there are too many screens for anyone to look at simultaneously or the real-time images are too small to have value. In reality, there is no realistic way to cost effectively display and watch 50 high-resolution cameras. So where is the value?
In addition to broadcasting a 1920x1080 video stream or higher, the newer cameras can also capture video at up to 5Megapixels. That makes for some fairly impressive images and opens up all sorts of possibilities if you can get it back to a central location for processing. That’s where our big wireless pipes start having value. Imagine the camera shooting snapshot every 20 seconds to augment the high-quality video stream for forensic evidence at trial and dumping these images on a central server.
Currently most people use this much resolution for forensic use. Usually an accident is going to look the same in HD as well as CIF on video. In fact, the higher frame rate has more value than the resolution. However, the higher image quality might tell us who was driving in case there was question of that or reveal a detail such as a braking point based on a car nosing down that the lower resolution may not. In reality, most of the mega-pixel cameras can deliver both high-frame rates and HD quality.
I’m finishing our first deployment right now where all the cameras are HD quality on the fixed and 4CIF or better on the PTZ cameras (HD PTZ cameras weren’t available from Axis when we started the project). With the cameras set to 1920x1080, 20fps, 30% compression, using H.264, we are seeing about 7-8Mbps.
There are two areas where the higher resolution system has much more of an advantage. The first is in the use of forensic evidence at trial. If the subject actually has features that are discernible, then there is a higher chance of prosecution. With CIF cameras, that means either very short ranges or very small viewing areas.
The second and more important use is in the field of Video Analytics. Video Analytics uses a computer to analyze a video stream and look for specific types of activity. It basically turns video surveillance from a forensic device into a pro-active tool. Video analytics have been used in airports and depots to look for loiterers or abandoned luggage. More expensive analytic systems obviously have more features such as license plate recognition and facial recognition. Some video analytic systems can tell the emotional level of the subject or look for abhorrent behavior.
The limitation on analytics has always been resolution, processing power, and algorithms. Lower resolution can’t make out enough details for facial recognition or license plates at any distance and higher bandwidth over wireless (remember, this is a wireless series, not a wired series)has always been a challenge. At the same time, as the resolution increases, the processing power needs increase. For example, it take 4 times as much processing power to handle a 4CIF resolution video stream as it does a CIF vide stream. Expand that up to 1080HD resolution and now an older Dual-Xenon server that could handle 8 CIF streams 3 years ago can’t even handle one HD stream.
Fortunately, between Intel and the gaming industry, the answer is just right before us. Newer Intel processors using the I7 core have some pretty massive power. Jump into the Xenon version of that processor series and its running 6 cores with 6 virtual cores. Double up the Xenon processor and you have more than sufficient horsepower to do any type high-level video analytics.
Since video analytic processing isn’t any different than game processing in terms of the type of hardware needed, the gaming industry has pretty much handed us the answer. High power video cards or GPU’s (Graphic Processing Units as they are generally referred to), can be stacked to multiply the processing power. In fact, it’s possible to use 4 GPU’s in the same computer that’s capable of cracking weak AES encryption in minutes or hours. Maximum PC built a 3 card version of this exact computer. Obviously you want a different hard drive storage combination, but if the software supports the GPUs, here’s the answer.
Improved analytic engines also have the ability to do object recognition. Imagine an Amber Alert that can have every camera in the city scanning for a specific, make, model, and color of a vehicle in real-time in addition to license plates to try to find a child. All of this advanced capability requires 3 things, lots CIF cameras at very short distances for clarity, fewer cameras with very high-definition, and lots of bandwidth to get this data back to a central location. If it’s wireless, that historically has been even more difficult.
The traffic surveillance system design we used in the Town of Sahuarita was based on three things:
1)Budget
2)Capability, currently and in the future
3)System Expansion
7-8 Mbps per camera meant that there needed to be a lot of capacity. Originally the design involved 4 APs with sector antennas covering 360 degrees and up to 400Mbps or more (I told you we would get back the wireless part of the equation eventually). Although the capacity was sufficient when it was originally installed, the RF environment changed while we were finishing the system. I covered the interference issues with the local WISP in an earlier article and after my experience with Atlanta, I decided to change this design over also. With an equipment change of less than $2000, we expanded the capacity out to 800Mbps and simultaneously reduced noise figures from -75 to -92dB or better. Most lights are now PTP links to either City Hall or between each other. Since the use of highly directional antennas on the main building means my beam patterns are now 6 degrees or less, frequency reuse isn’t an issue. I haven’t used the building as my antenna isolation shield yet but that’s coming next as we add more traffic lights.
Uneven terrain also meant AP hopping wasn’t an option. Since budget was an issue and we already had some of the infrastructure in place already, we stayed with the Ubiquiti equipment. Technically this is now a combination PTP/PTMP design. I didn’t use WDS since I needed security features that won’t work with WDS on the Ubiquiti products. And because the Rockets and Nanostations cost less than $100, the highest cost would be a pole with a Rocket M5 with an MTI dual-polarity 5.8GHz flat panel antenna for about $350. However, as the deployment went in, we made some changes and are now using Powerbridges in place of the Rocket/MTI antenna combinations as they have become available. The end result of this design is that every light has an MCS(15) 2x2 MIMO link either directly back to City Hall or in a hop path between lights using the Rockets, Nanostations, and Nanostation Locos. The total cost of all the radio and antenna equipment for 13 traffic lights and 800Mbps of total capacity at City Hall will be less than $10,000 including the 2.4GHz WiFi system that went in simultaneously.
The capability of the system, although it’s still being installed, will provide some excellent prosecutorial evidence when needed. In the case of accidents, the combination of the resolution of the cameras along with the PTZ cameras that are paired with them will allow traffic and public safety the information they need to respond appropriately. In the case of a hit-and-run, the runner is going to have a much harder time getting away with high-resolution images of the vehicle and the plate, when available. If the driver leaves the vehicle, the planned video analytic software with virtual tracking with the PTZ’s are going to keep the driver, now the runner, in camera view much longer for police and give a better picture for recognition.
One other side note is that many of these cameras have audio capability. We already apply analytics to gun-shot detection and window breakage applications. Throw in some audio clues for a crash to support a video analytic rule of two objects trying to occupy the same area at the same time (crash), and false alerts drop.
There is no real growth limit to the system. On the bandwidth side, each traffic light has the capacity to hop several lights if necessary or add additional cameras. On the image side, as computer processing power continues to increase, the resolution and bandwidth is already in place to take advantage of it. This means more sophisticated surveillance tools for traffic, law enforcement, and wireless bandwidth for mobile vehicles. Video analytics are the best way to use the increased resolution an image quality that increased bandwidth capacity can provide.

Chapter 15 - Thinking is cheaper than doing

I said we would figure out how to compete with cable and it’s time to put up or shut up. I’m not writing the entire business plan here and I’m going to leave some key pieces out to protect some of what I’m working on, but the basic concept is here and it’s solid. We will put it all together later but let’s just think it through first and add some more tools.

Early on while developing this idea, I realized that while anybody could create a system that delivered bandwidth, the retail price of bandwidth was going to probably go down, making a Capex recovery more difficult. I have realized now that I looked at it the wrong way and that there would never be enough bandwidth, regardless of the cost. I also felt that there weren’t enough apps out there to drive the need for more bandwidth so that was the first part of the equation that had to be solved. This problem started fixing itself with the advent of smart phones, YouTube, video conferencing, VoIP, etc… and bandwidth needs started increasing very quickly. More recently I have to personally thank Google for their new search engine and Direct TV with the NFL package. Just keep em’ coming boys.

Small businesses need better options than T-1 circuits. They are slow and expensive. DSL circuits are slightly faster down and almost slower up. Of course, if they could keep them working or keep the performance at the purchased rate, that would be even better (can you tell I had another Saturday morning wasted calling Qwest tech support for a circuit bouncing like a superball) . Cable is also starting to expand again. However, in any area that only has one local loop provider, let’s just say you aren’t getting any coupons in the mail.

If you really want to see the opposite of capitalism in action in this area, just visit Mexico and try to start a wireless internet business. You have to hand your business plan over to Telmex, all the details and technologies, and hope they approve you opening up a company to compete with them. Yea, like that’s going to happen. It costs $1200-$2500 for a simple T-1 circuit down there. Imagine Cricket having to ask Verizon if they can open up a competing cell phone company. Mexico will always be playing catch up technically to the rest of the world until they allow open competition for small businesses. For those who want to tell me that Telmex is providing low-cost DSL service, try to make a VoIP International call over the service and amazingly, the quality is really bad. Wonder if that has anything to do with Telmex charging exhorbitant rates for international calling. If any country needed wireless options to compete with Telmex, Mexico does.

It’s also evident that the chokehold held by local loop provides wasn’t going to change without a huge investment in fiber or cable. I still believe that fiber is the best technical way to deliver massive bandwidth. It is by far the best long term solution based on what I see in the future for wireless, but it’s not the most cost-effective unless you happen to be digging up the street for some reason and laying new conduit. The power companies had the best chance to break that monopoly but the Bandwidth over Powerlines idea was simply a bad idea. They had a better solution on the table and still do, but I don’t see any of them playing that card. They could have easily delivered 30Mbps to the home for a lot less money than BoP but but I haven’t seen anyone deploy that idea, nor do I expect them to.

Investment in fiber is difficult to make for residential because of the long term ROI. That’s why most companies have abandoned it. The population density in the U.S along with the lack of new home construction and infrastructure mean that almost the only group willing to throw money at FTTH is the federal government since hey, it’s not their money and they need more votes. Whether it’s the most efficient use of our tax money is irrelevant. In the meantime, wireless costs have come way down while capacity has increased. Of course, cable companies haven’t been sitting on their hands and their capacity has increased simultaneously. DSL, well let’s just say that the DSL companies are still evaluating expanding into the Realty and Moving and Storage businesses. I really like the new marketing plan in Phoenix calling DSL “Heavy Duty or HD Internet. I almost crashed my car I when I saw that billboard I was laughing so hard. I was thinking HD stood for Howdy Doody Internet after several more crashes of my service again this week.

Being the wireless technical gurus that we all are, we just simply say throw up AP’s everywhere which is what municipal wireless and mesh systems tried to do. This would cover about half the calls I have gotten from people interested in these types of projects. One minute of explanation concerning getting access rights and insurance along with pesky little details like ROI, and the conversation ends. As I pointed out in the last article, as cheap as wireless is to deploy compared to fiber, it’s just as difficult to recoup the ROI because it’s difficult to deliver a triple-play solution which has the highest revenue. It’s also logistically difficult, expensive, and a very long term project to deploy hundreds of vertical assets around a city, assuming you can even get access to them. Nowadays interference, as pointed out in Chapter 13, is also a way of life.

If you have read all the articles, the blueprint is already there for alternative municipal deployments or my favorite phrase, Guerilla Wireless. The devil is in the details and implementation. We needed an inexpensive source of Internet which we found for as little as $1 per Mb. We need a backhaul infrastructure that can support up to 2Gbps or more. That’s off the shelf today with all the licensed and unlicensed equipment out there and throughput ranging up to 4Gbps or more. Our last mile equipment on the client side is less than $100. We also know that we can build systems capable of delivering last mile up to 30Mbps or more to residential or business systems with AP’s costing as little as $100.

Part of the formula in calculating ROI in an area depends on whether you are using PTMP, open WiFi, or a hybrid model to provide service. It’s also important to decide if you are going to compete on price alone or on service levels. Going head to head with comparative pricing has been the battle that wireless hasn’t been able to fight. We can fight that now. However, you are going to have to make sure that your system is rock solid. In addition, if you can get $40 dollars or more, regardless of the deliverable bandwidth, your numbers start to look better. With all the people who are dropping cable TV and going to Internet TV only, if you can deliver the bandwidth, you can compete and be profitable. Keep the TV thing in mind as you calculate other revenue streams also. Also keep in mind the billing structure for your local power company. These are hints to maximize your revenue per bandwidth.

Now you are probably thinking that I’ve left out an important piece such as vertical assets. Again, I point out that I gave the blueprint for how to install systems in many environments. What I haven’t covered is how to get local assets, get the support of the community behind you, and do it for little or no monthly costs. You aren’t getting around the Capex part but if you can get a lot of your vertical assets and contribute to the community on many levels, that’s a huge advantage. WiFi is a game of inches (thank you Vince Lombardi) that has to be played at that level. It also has to be played at the political level. However, put the right players in the game to handle these, coupled with a solid technical team and the numbers work. Your team has to be fast, ambitious, and willing to take risks.

Let’s add a few more tools into our toolbox first. The biggest tool is using single building supporting a 4 square mile area for less than $3000 in equipment. We know that large brick buildings block 2.4GHz and above pretty well (assume from the back of the antenna, not the front). Instead of putting antennas on the tops of buildings, let’s look at putting the radios on the side of the buildings. I can see property managers cringing already because they don’t want their buildings looking like NASA. However, our equipment is fairly small. For example, a Ubiquiti Nanostation 2M is about 11 inches tall and 3 inches wide. This AP supports up to 100Mbps+ of real world throughput with a 20MHz wide channel using 802.11N. It’s basically the size of a brick. Paint it red (assuming red brick), hang it 30-100+ feet in the air and nobody would even see it. Throw three of them on a wall and there is 300+Mbps shooting one direction. It’s easy to hit a laptop with these at 1000 feet LOS. This fits pretty much every school out there and since most of the high schools already rent their light poles for cellular phones, it’s not much of a stretch to get the building.

Now throw in the 5GHz versions of the same radio on the same wall using four 20MHz channels in 5.8GHz, and you have 700MHz of bandwidth shooting in one direction. The brick wall eliminates interference from behind the behind or on the sides. Expand this out to 4 walls and 2.8Gbps of bandwidth is now available all over the surrounding area of the building. Assuming the building is 60’ and the houses around the area are 30’ with few trees above 40’, outdoor 5.8GHz CPE’s could easily connect back up to 2-5 miles away with less than $150 in equipment. So for $3000 in radio equipment, you are delivering a massive amount of bandwidth from a central location.

If a student could get direct access to school computer assets at a high bandwidth rates, think about what other services the schools could offer. How does the idea of “Education Everywhere” sound? This was one of my earlier ideas to bring better assets to students and more control to their online experience. Also think in terms of low cost access, breaking the digital divide, and political capital. This idea has many legs.

Don’t stop at schools though. Any brick building with 30’ of height or more is a potential vertical asset. In some cases, you can make a deal to provide internet for a fee inside the building to tenants. In other cases, you might have to give something away for free but you still get the asset. Compared to hundreds or thousands of dollars that cellular or data companies pay for vertical assets, this isn’t a bad idea. You just have to scale the cost to the potential market. In this game, you don’t get the advantage of amortizing losing areas across the big picture.

I leave the details of physically running cabling (through the wall or conduit outside the wall) and bolting against the wall to each individual installer. For example, if there is metal flashing on the roof, it might be easier to use a strap over the roof and paint the radio the same color as the flashing. If you are in the middle of the wall, it might be easier to drill through and bolt in from the back while running the cable through the same hole. There are a hundred ways to make it aesthetically pleasing, but there is no denying the performance capability. If you are really ambitious, you can build a metal box around each one of the radios to reduce noise and tighten up the beam patterns. Of course the installation, switches, and trying to figure out where to get 3Gbps of back end bandwidth is still an issue. I would estimate a full deployment like this around $10K in Arizona.

Take this down to a smaller scale also. One of the complaints for residential deployment is that there may not be vertical assets in every area. Wrong. There are vertical assets in every area. Tell me that there isn’t at least 1 person every square mile that would trade free internet for roof rights to their house. My guess is that there is 10 times that. Because the coverage zone is short, ½ mile every direction, it’s extremely cheap (less than $1000 installed) and quick to install this type of system. If you sell to 10 people per square mile, your monthly vertical asset cost is 1/10^th the monthly revenue or $50. Even if you don’t trust the people in the house to pay the electrical bill, it’s not that expensive to add a meter. Who needs lights when every house on the planet is a potential vertical asset?

On the house, think chimney with some type of metallic shield if you want the signal isolation. Four AP’s with 400Mbps of bandwidth up there cost less than $300 for 360 degrees of short range coverage. If it’s a smaller area, even a single omni-directional antenna can deliver 40 Mbps. If there area is covered with trees, chimneys aren’t high enough, or the Home Owner’s association is run by Ghengis Kahn, then use your imagination. In areas where you aren’t sure that your AP site is going to be stable, use 1x1 802.11N radios with omni-directional antennas on the surrounding client areas so that if you have to move the AP, you don’t have to reposition a bunch of client radios.

Plan for your system to be dynamic and budget for that. Wireline companies generally don’t have that issue. However, the ability to be dynamic and spontaneous is also the advantage to WiFi. As long as you plan on that type of environment instead of being surprised, then this model become significantly more successful.

All of these ideas and techniques are to provide the tools to make WiFi competitive. However, these are still just the technical ideas without getting into the financial details. I wouldn’t propose them if I didn’t know they could be financially successful. If your focus is 100% technical, this doesn’t work. You will absolutely need someone with business and marketing experience to make this happen. I keep learning about new ideas that can generate more revenue daily if the infrastructure is in place, so don’t limit yourself to simply being a bandwidth providers. Associations and strategic partnerships are just as important to the creation of a growing system.

With the economy in a slump, there is always a place for someone to come in and do something cheaper, better, and more efficiently. Southwest isn’t the leader in the industry because they made the best martinis in First Class. They used their people more efficiently and delivered what the client wants. WiFi has the same option as demonstrated by Triad Wireless and other companies. Let’s get it moving people.