May 8, 2008 -- Axis Communications announced that the Long Beach City school district in Long Island, NY is using a variety of Axis network cameras to provide public school security.
"School safety has increasingly become a public concern as the National School Safety and Security Services reported 27 deaths, 85 non-death shooting incidents and 238 violent incidents ranging from stabbings to fights and Taser attacks across the nation during the 2005-2006 school year," notes Fredrik Nilsson, general manager of Axis.
Bay Shore, N.Y.-based A+ Technology Solutions designed the Long Beach City school district's security system, along with Michel Richez, the district's director of technology and information services. In addition to the new security camera system, Richez manages the infrastructure for the entire district, its schools and offices, along with technology staff development, a Website, and phones.
"Our key objective on this project was to design a security system that would leverage the existing infrastructure and provide the benefit of high-resolution clarity for positive identification," explains David Antar, president of A+. "From our experience the clear choice was Axis Communications network cameras for the edge devices, and IPVideo Corporation's Dynaview Enterprise Class NVR as the backend solution."
A+ Technologies rolled out the school district's security system in phases. Phase one included security cameras and security management software in the 1,350-student Long Beach High School, the district's largest school. Phase two will expand the system into various elementary and middle schools, plus the administration offices. It will also tie in an access control system, so that if an unauthorized person uses a security card to get into a room, the Dynaview system will send an alert by email or text message to the proper authorities.
Nearly 90 network cameras from Axis have been installed in the high school's interior. The cameras feature built-in, two-way audio capabilities, including audio detection alarm, enabling real-time communication with visitors or intruders. The cameras include the Axis 216FD models for the interior, with 225FD models for exterior locations and 215 PTZ models for parking lots and playing fields.
Concrete walls presented wiring challenges in the deployment. With a WAN already in place, the district's team says it chose the Axis IP-based network cameras, because network cameras don't require as extensive wiring as analog cameras. In addition, IP-based systems can be implemented faster and provide higher resolution.
According to Richez, "The Axis products we chose delivered the crisp pictures we desired, and IPVideo Corporation's NVR was user friendly. There was minimal training and my administrators could use and access the video easily."
Another benefit, according to the district, was that the WAN enabled Richez to maximize the system even further, as he was able to establish virtual private networks so that the school officials and/or law enforcement personnel could log in to the network from their laptops anywhere in the world at any time.
"In the last six months, the security cameras have more than met their worth," continues Richez. "Students know they can't get away with much. It has been an amazing deterrent." Richez also notes that that school administrators were able to save thousands of dollars by using their existing WAN infrastructure in combination with network cameras' Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) capabilities and remote management.
A+ says it plans to make the security system even more sophisticated in the future, because the existing infrastructure and the flexibility of the IP-based system has a functional base from which to work. With plans to incorporate access control, building management systems and video analytics, the district will then have an integrated security management platform with sophisticated alert capabilities, maintains Axis Communications.