'Real' cost ?

Has anyone hear ever worked on a municipality video surveilance system ?

Buffalo, NY just finished installing a 60 camera system using the 4.9 GHz
Public safety band.

The link below is an article about it.

The question is the cost. According to the article, it seems like the
camera's and radio equipment needed and the city paid for, amotized over
the 60 camera's, ended up costing ~ $41,000 per camera location. Additional
costs for a monitoring room, (what I'm assuming are site-surveys)
analytics, and other additional costs.

I've seen many of them around the city, and all of the ones I've seen
appear to be mounted on existing locations (meaning none of the $41K per
site included construction/installation of special poles or dedicated
towers.)

I guess it's all in the cost of the camera's.....(which I couldn't find
online with a quick search.)

Still though, $41K per camera site sounds pretty high.

http://www.bpdny.org/Home/Press/Curr...ceCameraUpdate

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:(E-Mail Removed):

> On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:44:36 +0000 (UTC), DanS
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>Has anyone hear ever worked on a municipality video surveilance system
>>?
>
> Knot Me.
>
>>Buffalo, NY just finished installing a 60 camera system using the 4.9
>>GHz Public safety band.
>>
>>The link below is an article about it.
>>
>>The question is the cost. According to the article, it seems like the
>>camera's and radio equipment needed and the city paid for, amotized
>>over the 60 camera's, ended up costing ~ $41,000 per camera location.
>>Additional costs for a monitoring room, (what I'm assuming are
>>site-surveys) analytics, and other additional costs.
>>
>>I've seen many of them around the city, and all of the ones I've seen
>>appear to be mounted on existing locations (meaning none of the $41K
>>per site included construction/installation of special poles or
>>dedicated towers.)
>>
>>I guess it's all in the cost of the camera's.....(which I couldn't
>>find online with a quick search.)
>>
>>Still though, $41K per camera site sounds pretty high.
>>
>>http://www.bpdny.org/Home/Press/Curr...lanceCameraUpd
>>ate
>
> "The equipment includes: sixty (60) surveillance cameras and
> supporting software ($2,534,895.00); analytics for sixty (60)
> surveillance cameras ($180,000.00); video surveillance monitors,
> furniture, workstations and software for a video surveillance room
> ($212,520.00); and an outdoor events video monitoring trailer
> ($37,500). The contract also includes a $41,300.00 Performance Bond,
> bringing the total project cost to $3,006,215.00. The purchase of the
> system was made possible through the use of NYS Aid Incentive to
> Municipalities (Efficiency Grant) funding and, upon the Mayor's
> request, was formally approved by the Buffalo Common Council."
>
> This might be a photo of the hardware:
> <http://www.avriogroup.com/docs/Public%20Safety%20Data%20Sheet.pdf>
>
> Well, a Tropos node is about the same complexity (with a much better
> package) at about $3,500 each. Top of the line Toshiba PTZ camera is
> about $1,800. Packaging adds about $500. Power system (w/o solar),
> about $300. No clue on the "software" but $1,000 each should be
> tolerable. That makes my guess about $7,100 total.f
>
> They paid $2,534,895 for 60 cameras = $42,248 each. 6x markup.
> I should get out of engineering and go into "crime fighting".

Yes the camera 'software' is a mystery. They additionally paid for
software for the video surveillance room which I'm guessing is for
managing the views and camera's. The camera s/w I can guess would be the
comapanies s/w to administer to the device....you'd think a MIB would
suffice.

I know that the company I'm at would have been able to do the hardware
and installations for that for 1/2 that price....I'm positive most of it
was on existing hardware......lamp post's, signal arms, etc. so there
wasn't the need for high-dollar construction.

Regards,

DanS

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:(E-Mail Removed):

> On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:16:18 +0000 (UTC), DanS
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>I know that the company I'm at would have been able to do the hardware
>>and installations for that for 1/2 that price....I'm positive most of
it
>>was on existing hardware......lamp post's, signal arms, etc. so there
>>wasn't the need for high-dollar construction.
>
> Well, there's a clue in the original article which says:
> "Johnson Controls, Inc. was the lowest responsible
> bidder to respond to a Request for Proposals issued by
> the Mayor's Office,"
>
> Lowest -RESPONSIBLE- bidder is a sneaky way of disclosing that there
> were lower bids from other companies, but that the bids contained
> something that turned off the Buffalo bureaucracy. Usually it's
> something like claiming that the size of the vendor is insufficient to
> meet the ongoing needs of the city or something equally vague. You
> might want to determine if the mayors favorite charity received a
> donation. No clue about the Avrio Group. This is what they call a
> corporate data sheet:
> <http://www.avriogroup.com/docs/Avrio%20One%20Pager.pdf>
> No numbers of any kind. Maybe Buffalo just tossed a coin?
>
> I managed to determine that there were 8 original bidders, but can't
> find the names.
>
> Duh... Here are some photos of last years demo:
> <http://www.bpdny.org/Home/Press/2007/NewSurveillanceCameraDemo>
> Crude at best. Look at the last paragraph. Reading between the
> lines, it looks like Buffalo is using State and Federal money to build
> up their PD/FD data network, that has nothing to do with the actual
> cameras. That may explain the high markup.
>
> Proposed camera locations:
> <http://tinyurl.com/25tvbq>
> That's quite an area to cover with 4.9GHz repeaters/mesh.
>
> "First Arrests Made within Hours of System Installation..."
> <http://www.firetide.com/innercontent.aspx?taxid=16&id=2010>
> The article has more techy information on the system. Looks like
> "evidence grade cameras" Axis cameras and video servers, which is
> where the optics costs more than the camera. However, looking at the
> demo photos, I don't think they're using anything sophisticated.
>
> Firetide mesh radios.
> <http://www.firetide.com/innerContent.aspx?taxid=6&id=50>
>
> OnSSI video management, which methinks is the mystery software:
> <http://www.onssi.com>
> There are downloadable demos if you wanna play.
>
> Nice setup, but hardly worth $42,000 each.

Geez, Jeff, even I wasn't into doing that much research. But thanks, I'll
forward this info to the powers that be.

I missed the 'responsible' bidder thing. My gut feeling is that since it
was grant money, cost wasn't a concern. There also had to be some kind of
kickbacks somewhere....no doubt. Johnson controls is a huge company.

Earlier this year, we, as a small company, provided our OEM I/O radio
gear, network design, on-site prop studies, and radio
management/monitoring s/w to a project in Florida along I-75 that
monitors guardrails along 'Alligator Alley' for collision breakthrus, and
relays this info back to HQ. This was 250-ish nodes and the total of our
contract was around $260K. I guess they got a really good deal. Granted
this was the 900 SS 115Kbps gear, but about 4 times the number of nodes.
I even had to design some custom antenna standoffs for these tapered
concrete polls they are using at Master locations.

Looking at the map of the camera locations here in Buffalo, there's
enough space between them that I can easily see the criminals just moving
somewhere else. That's kind fo funny....and not. For instance, on the far
right, and centrally located top to bottom is the intersection of Bailey
and Genesee. Bailey runs N & S and Genesee is the road going SW to NE.
From that intersection, all the way SW down Genesee there is not one
other camera. The camera's I've seen are maybe mounted at street light
height, at best. Almost all of the homes up and down the sidestreets off
of Genesee are close-together, 2 story, city homes, so I don't see too
much benefit, other than maybe a couple hundred yards in each direction
the camera can 'look' up and down the street.

Thanks again for the info Jeff.

Regards,

DanS

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:(E-Mail Removed):

> On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:28:26 +0000 (UTC), DanS
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>Geez, Jeff, even I wasn't into doing that much research. But thanks,
>>I'll forward this info to the powers that be.
>
> I was a bit burned out by dealing with getting my truck smogged and
> need a diversion. You owe me about an hour of Googling.



>>I missed the 'responsible' bidder thing. My gut feeling is that since
>>it was grant money, cost wasn't a concern. There also had to be some
>>kind of kickbacks somewhere....no doubt. Johnson controls is a huge
>>company.
>
> 140,000 employees.
>
>>Earlier this year, we, as a small company, provided our OEM I/O radio
>>gear, network design, on-site prop studies, and radio
>>management/monitoring s/w to a project in Florida along I-75 that
>>monitors guardrails along 'Alligator Alley' for collision breakthrus,
>>and relays this info back to HQ. This was 250-ish nodes and the total
>>of our contract was around $260K. I guess they got a really good deal.
>>Granted this was the 900 SS 115Kbps gear, but about 4 times the number
>>of nodes. I even had to design some custom antenna standoffs for these
>>tapered concrete polls they are using at Master locations.
>
> $1,000 per node, including install is cheap.

Well that wasn't including installation, just all the equipment (ALL -
coax/mounts/NEMA/antenna's/etc.) prop studies, network design, custom
s/w, blah, blah, blah. They also purchased a 3 year extended warranty for
$25K. There, they are also installing to existing infrastructure, except
for 23 master locations. But I've been corrected, the total was around
$300k, so it figures to be around $1200 per location.

> That's the list price of
> one packaged Maxstream box. Are you giving away your products and
> services?

Honestly, I think the prices are still too high. And there's constantly
games being played with list price's, and discount's, etc. You
know.....competition X radio is listed at $1395, so this one will be
listed at $1375. I just think there should be a set price. Period. Well,
two sets, one for end user sales and one for re-seller sales. Nothing
bugs me more than looking at some piece of equipment online and not being
able to find AT LEAST a list price.

(Why can't there just be a price......a call to one auto parts store that
used to be here goes like this.....'I need a price on (whatever) for a
(whatever year car)'. 'OK, we've got it in stock. List price, $195.97,
retail price $124.76, your price $39.47.' Just give me the 'real' price
!!!)

> Granted, it's not high speed "evidence quality" video with
> cameras that read license plates at 300 yards. Other than the
> hardware and cameras, it's similar to the overpriced Buffalo install
> at 1/40th the cost.
>
>>Looking at the map of the camera locations here in Buffalo, there's
>>enough space between them that I can easily see the criminals just
>>moving somewhere else. That's kind fo funny....and not. For instance,
>>on the far right, and centrally located top to bottom is the
>>intersection of Bailey and Genesee. Bailey runs N & S and Genesee is
>>the road going SW to NE. From that intersection, all the way SW down
>>Genesee there is not one other camera. The camera's I've seen are
>>maybe mounted at street light height, at best. Almost all of the
>>homes up and down the sidestreets off of Genesee are close-together, 2
>>story, city homes, so I don't see too much benefit, other than maybe a
>>couple hundred yards in each direction the camera can 'look' up and
>>down the street.
>
> Some of the comments in the Buffalo City BLOG said the same thing.
> Good, but not enough. What bothers me is that it seems to be deployed
> over a rather large area, rather than concentrating on the high crime
> areas. If this was really intended to "fight crime", it would less
> uniformly distributed.

The highest crime areas are the East & West side. That is where most of
the drive-by's are, and the drug-dealers and prostitues and violent
crimes. I had lived in the city at one time, but now, in my opinion,
there's only a few select areas that I would even think of living in.
That would be the northern most part of the city, and *possibly* the
southern-most area. Oh, and a small area that is like the SE corner.

> This is a Google map of the Buffalo area at approximately the same
> scale as the Powerpoint slide showing the camera locations:
> <http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...+new+york&ie=U
> TF8&ll=42.913189,-78.703995&spn=0.304751,0.612488&z=11> Looks like
> they got most of downtown, but none of the outlying areas. The
> "terrain" view shows that the area covered is fairly flat, so wireless
> should work. My guess(tm) is about 3 x 5 miles area. That's a bit
> too far between nodes to do it all via wireless. My guess(tm) is that
> there's lease lines (or cheapo DSL lines) involved, with very little
> wireless. Cameras like to live near the street level, while wireless
> likes to live on the roof tops. Wireless also doesn't do very well
> shooting down urban canyons. Incidentally, I like the part about
> distributing live video to mobiles.
>
> If I have time, I'll scrape the PPT page and overlay it on a Google
> Earth map for a better view of what they're doing. Here's a JPG of
> the map:
> <http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/buffalo-cameras/>
> One problem is that the clueless PowerPoint creator mangled the aspect
> ratio of the image. I had to scale it vertically 1.75 times using
> Irfanview. I'm not sure that's correct. If someone has the time to
> do the overlay, I would appreciate it (because I'm lazy).

When I get home, I'll take a look at it. (Remoted in right now.)

Regards,

DanS

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:(E-Mail Removed):

>>There is a pdf of the camera locations and on a quick look there are
>>some differences between the two.
>><http://www.ci.buffalo.ny.us/files/1_...eless/Buffalo_
>>Wireless_Camera_Locations_Map.pdf>
>
> Thanks. That's much better. What I wanted to do is see how 60
> cameras would play if they were all mesh. I'm assuming they're all at
> street level, which means that the cameras have to be at intersections
> and looking down an "urban corridor" to get a shot at the next MESH
> node. A quick look at the map seems to indicate this is not the case.
> Either I'm missing something or this system can't be done with
> wireless mesh (at street level).

I'm thinking it is not really a true mesh network, but broken down into
segments of x amount of nodes that can cross communicate, and then
backhauled back somehow.

Oddly enough, centrally located is Bailey and Kermit and shown as one of
the east-most location. I was there Wednesday, in a bucket truck 40 feet
off the ground, and the camera is not located at that intersection. It is
actually 1 intersection south, at Bailey & E. Delevan, located nearest to
the SE corner. Now what's odd about this is there were 3 antenna's at
that location. One was pointing North up Bailey, and then Delevan had an
antenna pointing both east and west.

Why would an antenna need to be going east, if this is the east-most
location ? It would seem to need to be to get back to some backhaul
location.

I'm not a streaming video guru by anymeans, but I'm not sureif one large
mesh could support 60 camera's all streaming 30fps 'evidence quality'
video.

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:(E-Mail Removed):

> Incidentally, the 4.9GHz band is only 50MHz wide. (4.940 to 4.990GHz)
> with a mix of 1 and 5 Mhz channels. To get full motion 30fps (about
> 37MHz at 640x480) "evidence quality" video, they would need to use the
> maximum 20MHz channel bandwidth. That leaves one more 20Mhz
> "channel", plus the assorted 1Mhz channels. My guess(tm) is that the
> RFC (regional frequency coordinators) reserved the 2nd 20MHz for other
> users. That means they're running this thing on store an forward with
> a single radio. Yech.
>
> Any clue where I might find the original RFQ document?

(I've now paid back 15 minutes out of the hour I owe you !!!)

http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=5
&q=http://www.ci.buffalo.ny.us/files/1_2_
1/Mayor/BuffaloWireless/Buffalo_Camera_Network_RFP_04_26_
07.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHTx_O4N8j4zI07wXA95arYFUZsdw

or

http://tinyurl.com/5w7ygp

The picture becomes a little clearer now. One of the pages I came across
said there was the radio's for camera locations and an additional 37
units to make the connectivity, so we're up to nearing 100 RF units in
use.

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:(E-Mail Removed):

> On Sat, 16 Aug 2008 12:51:05 +0000 (UTC), DanS
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>http://tinyurl.com/5w7ygp
>>
>>The picture becomes a little clearer now. One of the pages I came
across
>>said there was the radio's for camera locations and an additional 37
>>units to make the connectivity, so we're up to nearing 100 RF units in
>>use.
>
> Bingo. Thanks much. I wished it were the RFQ or bids instead of the
> RFP, but I can't complain (much).
>
> I quickly skimmed the document and found:
> "The City has dark fiber available in the University at Buffalo
> (UB) owned dark fiber network in the City of Buffalo. Two strands
> of fiber in the University’s backbone network... (etc)"
> There's the probable backhaul.

Not far from the fiber we are tapping into for a traffic control
application. But that is only at the northern most part of the system, so
there would need to be more than that one.

I tried to do a location overlay, but this PC is painfully slow...a 1 Ghz
Athlon w/256 megs of RAM. It had 512, but one stick died. It was taking
10 seconds just to open a menu and the HD was thrashing away.