What are the most important considerations for CCTV camera Installation ?

The market in 2020 is full of IP CCTV cameras of various types such as Power of Ethernet cameras, Wireless (WiFi) cameras, battery powered cameras, solar cameras, LTE cameras, and so on. A good installation can make a inexpensive CCTV cameras very reliable & effective for meeting the purpose it was installed (assuming it satisfies the functional requirements), whereas a poor installation can make even the most expensive and capable camera an unreliable system. So how do we ensure we have less installation failures ?

In our opinion, any CCTV camera installation needs to carefully consider THREE critical infrastructure aspects :

(1) Power

(2) Network

(3) Vandal Resistance

You need power to just run the camera. It should be *un-interrupted AFAP, otherwise you may miss recording critical events and raising alarms. Power can be supplied using electrical outlet (AC-DC adapter typically 5V or 12V), Over Ethernet (PoE or 802.3af/at/bt/*), Battery, and Solar. Even a combination of above methods such as Battery-cum-AC-DC adapter (battery gives backup in case of transient loss of power), Solar-Panel-cum-Battery, etc. Not every power supply suits every installation. You may not have power adaptor or ethernet port nearby, might be indoors ruling our solar option, not suitable to do any retro-fit wiring, and so on. Irrespective of the constraints, the facts remains that you need to supply *un-interrupted power by some design method.

Similarly CCTV recorded footage can be stored on camera, in an off-camera location like recorder rack nearby, a recorder in central location or in a cloud service or a combination. In either case their is a need to access or transfer surveillance footage from camera and for this a network is required. This network can be Wired Ethernet, WiFi, 4G-LTE/5G radio or in worst case the camera needs to become a WiFi hotspot to which a client can connect and view/transfer surveillance footage. Again like power this provides challenges. You may not get a strong cellular signal (indoor locations like basement, pump rooms, etc), may not have a WiFi or ethernet availability, etc. Nevertheless, one network connectivity method has to be found out OR the camera will have to be removed, taken elsewhere for viewing/transferring footage, which means a break in service. 

A third aspect worth considering is the vandal resistance of installation. It should not be very easy for anyone to tamper with the camera setup. Putting cameras at a height, hiding them, using special vandal resistant constructions (like domes), redundant storage (Cloud storage, SD Card + NAS, Recorder + Cloud, centralized off camera storage in secure environment, etc.), hidden (secured) cabling, having alarm/notification when camera is down, UPS functionality in case of blackout, etc. can be critical to prevent a criminal from committing a crime by tampering with the camera and getting away with it, even if their is no live monitoring of camera feeds by a dedicated surveillance system operator.

If an installer (Professional or DIY) gets these aspects right and selects the most suitable camera, he will end the project on a very satisfactory note AND have less lifecycle headaches to deal with during camera lifetime.

- Suman Kumar Luthra @ APRC-P3 Telecom Sub-Committee