Earlier in November Firetide announced Seoul Subway video surveillance system delivering real-time streaming to and from trains moving at 50 mph [pictures]. This project is kind of a big deal. Apart from the facts that:
- this is the first such deployment underground;
- the system delivers 20 Mbps of capacity for high-quality, 30-frames-per-second video;
- initial phase of the project is 1,000 nodes
- it’s deployed in extremely harsh conditions with reflective metal, vibration and dust;
the key to the deployment is Firetide’s mesh infrastructure mobility: the ability to maintain real-time connections between fixed and mobile mesh nodes moving at high speeds – without dropping packets and introducing latency or jitter
“Mobility” is a frequent requirement we hear about from our customers, and by mobility we mean hard-core infrastructure mobility, not “client mobility” as Wi-Fi access point vendors define it: between APs and smart phones, laptops, etc. Wi-Fi access architecture is enough to support non-critical low-bandwidth data, but for challenging environments and to support real-time video streaming or VoIP, only mesh will fit the bill.
Similarly, you cannot truly implement mobility with point-to-multipoint equipment, because of the central ‘command-and-control’ architecture, which does not allow for roaming. Mesh, with its distributed architecture and intelligence can support mobility within the mesh, and even roaming across multiple meshes.
Mobile real-time video is the wave of the future – for city-wide public safety, industrial sites, campus environments, mining and transportation. (Tip: you will need Firetide Mobility Controller, if your network design involves roaming between meshes).
For different approaches to ‘mobile video,’ see my post Defining Mobile Video – Notes From IWCE Wireless Killer Apps Panel.
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