July 20, 2006 Lake Success, NY -- A county in southern Florida has increased the security of its public transit trains in a major city thanks in part to a sophisticated video system. The system includes four Canon Canobeam DT-120 optical wireless data transceivers to deliver high-bandwidth video over data connections, the company has announced.
"Canobeam was a key component in creating an increased video/data bandwidth connection for this particular transit system, as well as enabling support of applications that hadn't been possible with other technologies," stated Chris Sellati, general manager of Miami-based installer Trident Telecom. "For transporting data over short-to-medium range distances, especially in areas where the RF frequency spectrum is crowded, the Canobeam DT-120 makes a great deal of sense."
Trident Telecom specified Canobeam for highly reliable transmission of live streaming video over data from each rail car to the county's central operations facility. In the system, digitized footage from security cameras on each rail car is sent wirelessly via RF to the nearest station. From there the data moves via a mobile access router to four Canobeam-equipped central aggregation points, which connect to matching Canobeam units on the roof of the county headquarters.
"Canobeam was the ideal video-over-data backhaul in this case due to a number of factors," continued Sellati. "The ease of installation and alignment was impressive. Also, with the distances we were dealing with -- ranging from 2,200 to 3,800 ft -- it had plenty of signal strength. Since we've set up the Canobeams, we haven't had a single problem with the links. It's just a very, very easy product to use."
In addition to saving space on the crowded roof of the county government's headquarters building, Canobeam's streamlined size also saved the county money. "The DT-120 helped us to save what little space we have left on this roof for adding future devices," explained Sellati. "It's lighter than many of the other free-space-optics solutions that are out there, which was very important considering the high wind-load restrictions that we have in South Florida due to hurricanes. A smaller footprint and lighter installation requires less of a structure to support it, so Canobeam, which is already at a competitive price point, was even more attractive, all things considered."