An online survey carried out jointly by Norbain SD, Europe's largest distributor of electronic security solutions, and CMP Information, organiser of IFSEC, has revealed that 50% of new CCTV systems are integrated with computer networks whether for viewing, transmitting or storing captured CCTV footage.

In response to the question: "What proportion of your CCTV installations involve linking CCTV systems to PCs for use over a network (LAN, WAN or Internet)?" respondents replied as follows:

                        No. of respondents      % of the total

Less than 10%              73                     27.04

10% - 25%                    25                     9.26

25% - 50%                    37                     13.70

50%  - 75%                   40                     14.81

More than 75%              38                     14.07

Almost 100%                 57                     21.11

Total                             270                   100%

135 participants (exactly 50% of the total) replied that 50% or more of their CCTV installations involve computer networks. A staggering 20% reported that almost 100% of their installations now involve a link to a computer network of some kind.

Ian Fowler, Norbain's Technical Training Manager is not surprised by the figures:

"We have known from anecdotal feedback from customers for several years that the proportion of systems being linked to computer networks is growing significantly. This survey confirms that trend and may even suggest that CCTV-IT integration is becoming the norm rather than the exception. This has many implications of course. Installers need an additional set of skills when linking CCTV systems to existing networks but they also need to be able to advise their customers of the implications of networked transmission and storage on topics such as Data Protection. Surveys like this will also encourage a move away from continuous monitoring to motion activated monitoring in order to ease the burden on network traffic."

The survey, in which 270 CCTV professionals took part, was hosted on the IFSEC 2004 web site in the weeks leading up to this year's event.

	SurveyIFSEC_NR.doc
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