Myth No.4 ~ 'IP CCTV systems have slow transmission'

Dedicated camera networks can easily cope and deliver excellent video streaming. Wireless networks are a bit slower but are delivering increasingly useful results where cable can’t be used. Currently, broadband internet viewing is limited to a few frames per second, but upload speeds will certainly continue to increase.

In IP CCTV, bandwidth refers to the data transmission rate of a signal, measured in bits per second. Local area networks typically have speeds of 100 Mbps (fast networks) or 1000 Mbps (Gigabit networks). This means that dedicated camera networks, particularly those using an Ethernet backbone, will easily cope with multiple camera locations each streaming less
than 2 Mbps.

Wi-Fi networks have maximum data speeds of 11 Mbps (802.11b) or 54 Mbps (802.11g). Wireless can be very useful where cable cannot be easily or cost-effectively installed, but specialist help should be sought for multi-camera links.

Broadband internet download speeds typically range from 1Mbps to 20 Mbps. Upload is different, and maximum ADSL upload speed where data is sent from a local system (e.g. CCTV system) to a remote system (e.g. remote viewing PC) is 512 kbps. With SDSL broadband, upload and download speeds are the same and are typically up to 2 Mbps.  

ADSL broadband is useful for remote viewing of images but, as can be seen from the above figures, upload speeds are limited to only a few frames per second. Until ADSL upload speeds are improved, the only ways to increase remote viewing speeds are to bond multiple ADSL lines together, subscribe to an SDSL line (where available) or subscribe to a leased line.