Cisco Cisco Aironet 1524 Lightweight Outdoor Mesh Access Point 정보 가이드
16
EdTEch
mag.com | September/October 2009
17
September/October 2009 |
EdTEch
mag.com
Wireless
Watch
Marquette University extends video surveillance beyond
campus borders with a wireless system, and crime rates drop.
W
ith campus safety and
security a nationwide
concern following
incidents at several
universities, the Department of
Public Safety at Marquette University
in late 2006 decided to fortify
security beyond campus boundaries.
While officers routinely patrolled off-
campus neighborhoods in the areas
adjacent to the university’s location
near downtown Milwaukee, the DPS
electronic surveillance system did
not extend off-campus. Thus, instead
of a costly and inefficient strategy of
deploying more officers, DPS turned
to a wireless video surveillance
system to extend security coverage to
neighboring streets.
“Public Safety came up with the idea
for the wireless surveillance system
beyond campus. They were looking
for a force multiplier,” says Dan Smith,
Marquette’s senior director of IT serv-
ices. “Putting feet on the street is very
expensive, and they were looking for a
more cost-effective way to provide the
same, or better, level of service.”
Much of the infrastructure was
already in place. Marquette started of-
fering wireless network access in aca-
demic buildings and common areas to
its 11,000 students and 2,500 faculty
and staff in 2001. And since 2007, stu-
dents in the dorms have had wireless
access over a Cisco Unified Wireless
Network. The university has also used
surveillance cameras running over the
wired network for many years, with
hundreds installed to monitor both in-
terior and exterior spaces on campus.
But to extend the reach of DPS into
the community, the university needed
two things: a wireless mesh network
and its neighbors’ cooperation.
With the Unified Wireless Network
already in place, the IT department
decided to add a Cisco mesh net-
work solution, but only after the due
diligence of comparing it with the
offering of another manufacturer, says
Mary Simmons, director of security
and networks.
“We investigated another solution,
but it was very proprietary, and we
shied away from it because of that,”
she says.
Smith says that he and others
involved in the decision also selected
Cisco because they thought the ven-
dor’s technology would offer better
end-to-end control over quality of
service and more easily let them give
video priority across the network.
Community Cooperation
It was relatively easy to persuade
Marquette’s neighbors to let the uni-
versity set up cameras on their prop-
erty as part of a system that beefs up
security in the community, says Smith.
“In most cases, the community is
pleased to do it, and they’re actually
providing the power for [the camer-
as],” he says. “They now have security
cameras up out-
side their property
that Public Safety
is watching for
them.”
At present, the
outdoor wireless
grid supports
12 surveillance
cameras mounted on commercial
and residential buildings at important
locations near the university, Smith
says. Fifteen Cisco Aironet 1520
Series lightweight outdoor mesh ac-
cess points, along with Cisco Catalyst
6500 wireless service modules that
enable centralized control, were in-
stalled on the periphery of the
Marquette campus. They provide
the wireless connectivity needed
to transmit operating instructions to
and video data from the cameras.
According to Simmons, the only
glitch in the implementation oc-
curred when older model access
points originally purchased for the
outdoor wireless system proved un-
suitable to Marquette’s needs.
“The first outdoor access points
that we used were really not made
for the environment that we had,”
Simmons says. “But we replaced them
with the newer outdoor access points,
and they seem to be working just fine.
Both CDW•G and Cisco were willing
and ready to jump in and work on all
problems that we encountered.”
Public Safety staff monitor the
real-time video from the outdoor
wireless installations, along with
the data from more than 400 other
campus surveillance cameras, on a
video wall at the department’s
Command Information Center,
says Lt. Brian Joschko, DPS support
services coordinator. Video from the
cameras is stored for about 30 days
on a network digital-video recorder,
unless it records a crime or other-
wise represents evidence, in which
case the data is shared with local law
enforcement officials and burned to
permanent storage media.
While signals between the mesh
access points and cameras travel over
the 2.4-gigahertz network, video from
the access points is backhauled over a
5GHz link to root access points con-
nected to Ethernet ports inside cam-
pus buildings. The result is that video
from the off-campus surveillance
cameras is available over Marquette’s
Cisco Unified Wireless Network.
One important piece of the wireless
initiative was extremely low-tech. To
maximize deterrence, the university
posted signs in the area around the
campus that read: “You are under vid-
eo surveillance.” The signs are part of a
focus on preventing crime or stopping
it in progress, rather than catching
criminals after the fact, Joschko says.
“Absolutely, our goal is to use
these [cameras] as proactive tools
— to catch people looking into car
case study
By Tommy PeTerson
windows before they actually break
into them, and catch people who are
hanging out on street corners with
their hoods up,” Joschko says. “Once
we identify those people, we send
officers out to get involved before a
criminal act occurs.”
Promising Results
With more cameras planned for
installation in the future, results from
the outdoor wireless surveillance
program are promising, says Joschko.
Total incidents were down 17 percent
in the first quarter of 2009, compared
with the first quarter of 2008. In the
same period, robberies dropped from
10 in 2008 to just three this year, and
personal crimes (robberies, sexual
assaults and battery) were down from
17 last year to seven this year.
Marquette is in the vanguard of a
growing number of mostly urban
colleges that are pushing their sur-
veillance capabilities out to the com-
munities around their campuses, says
security consultant and analyst Jim
Webster, president of Security Design
Services in Estell Manor, N.J. The
trend began with programs to beef up
5 Reasons
foR outdooR
suRveillance
1. A well-publicized surveillance
program deters crime.
2. A real-time wireless surveillance
system helps public-safety staff stop
crimes in progress, and surveillance
videos can be used to identify and
apprehend perpetrators after the fact.
3. The program improves
relationships with neighbors,
who reap the benefits
of increased safety in
the community.
4. Outdoor surveillance
4. Outdoor surveillance
technology leads to more
effective allocation of the public
safety department’s financial and
human resources.
5. The system offers safety
assurances to current and
prospective students, as well as
their parents.
Los Angeles police reported
a
40%
drop in crime the year after
the installation of a well-publicized
wireless video surveillance
system at Jordan Downs public
housing project.
souRce:
Los Angeles Police Department
LT. BriAn JOschkO says
the goal of the wireless
surveillance system is to
catch people before they
break into apartments,
stores or cars.
MAry siMMOns and DAn sMiTh say crime
rates are down on the Marquette campus in
Milwaukee thanks to the school’s outdoor
wireless surveillance system.
rates are down on the Marquette campus in
Milwaukee thanks to the school’s outdoor
wireless surveillance system.
P
h
O
TO
g
r
A
P
h
y
B
y J
O
h
n
s
iB
iL
s
k
i