Protection Partners Selects Strix Systems' Wireless Mesh for Real-Time Surveillance System

Aug. 3, 2005
Strix's multi-radio wi-fi mesh serves as alternative to fiber for integrated voice, video, and data surveillance systems

CALABASAS, Calif. -- Strix Systems, the leader in high-performance wireless mesh networking, today announced that Protection Partners International (PPI), an international alliance of security and anti-terrorism experts, has selected Strix Systems' Access/One Network wireless mesh solution as an alternative to dual fiber optic ring for real-time security surveillance deployments. PPI's professional consultants design security systems for nations, states, non-governmental agencies, and Fortune 1000 corporations worldwide that often require the integration of voice, video, surveillance, and two-way access control in one system. After evaluating single- and dual-radio mesh architectures, PPI determined that only Strix's multi-radio, multi-RF, multi-channel Wi-Fi mesh solution was capable of providing fiber-like capacity and redundancy for the integrated real-time security systems it designs and deploys.

"We work with governments and Fortune 1000 companies all over the world, and when it comes to their security and surveillance systems, these organizations require the absolute highest performance and robustness in order to ensure 100 percent uptime," said Thomas Norman, Executive Vice President of Protection Partners International. "We were looking for a wireless alternative to redundant fiber that could ease deployment and reduce cost, but still maintain the high-throughput and low-latency needed to provide integrated real-time services like voice and video. Before Strix, all other mesh solutions fell far short of meeting the requirements our customers demand. With Strix, we can provide fiber-like performance for our customers' security systems at a fraction of the cost and with infinitely easier deployment and management."

In recent years, the security surveillance industry has moved away from analog and 10BT cameras and has begun to adopt digital video as the standard. Streaming digital video requires 2Mbps per camera, and in large deployments that require a multitude of cameras, the ability to guarantee high throughput with minimum latency is critical to the success of the system. For this reason, most security systems designers traditionally used fiber for these deployments to guarantee high throughput and redundancy. When PPI began evaluating single-radio and even dual radio wireless mesh systems to replace fiber, they were convinced that no wireless system could support such stringent network demands. Strix's multi-radio mesh architecture proved to be the solution.

"Prior to Strix, we had given up on the ability of wireless systems to handle the burdensome capacity, throughput, ongoing management, and overall network performance demands required to support multiple integrated real-time services on one platform," said Thomas Norman, Executive Vice President of Protection Partners International. "With Strix, we can support up to 12 streaming video stations per radio across a multi-linear wireless mesh backbone, which is unthinkable with single-radio architectures. Not only does Strix's multi-radio architecture provide the overall capacity we need, but the overall ease of deployment saved us both money and time, and the ongoing operation and management of the system is incredibly simple."

As an international consulting agency, PPI has always operated as a vendor- and product-agnostic systems designer, using only the best product for any given deployment. Along with governments and corporations, PPI also works with many organizations in the burgeoning energy market, which require very high-performance mesh systems to facilitate their network demands. In complicated projects that require integrated voice, video, and data on one system and where the use of wireless technology would significantly reduce the time and cost of deployment, PPI has determined that Strix's multi-radio wireless mesh technology is the only system that can support their customers' needs.

"As a part of the win, Strix Systems also sees another great market match between our high-performance, easy-to-deploy wireless mesh systems and the harsh communications demands of the energy market place," said Cyrus Irani, vice president of marketing and strategy at Strix Systems.

"By working with Protection Partners International, we have proven that multi-radio architecture is the only wireless mesh capable of supporting extremely high-demand integrated voice, video, and data networks," said Bruce Brown, president and CEO at Strix Systems. "PPI's customers demand the most redundant and highest-performance networks available, and being designated as PPI's choice for fiber-alternative wireless networking is a strong validation of Strix's technology. To be deployed as an alternative to fiber optic systems from a capability perspective is one of the greatest endorsements and compliments of our Access/One Mesh System."