CCTV/Access Control installs

[CrootUK]

Anyone else frequently seeing poor installs of the above? so much potential for them to use pre existing IT systems but suppliers never seem to suggest being able to, rather there own cabs/cabling/switches that tend to be thrown anywhere.

 

Anyone successfully taken these onboard within IT?

 

Anyone centralised these services in a MAT?

 

If so how has it effected your team? Need for more staff? Has there been cost savings? How did you do it?

Edited February 19, 2023 by CrootUK

[Aprice]

When I'm quoting I'll always try to use existing, if what is already fitted is up to scratch. Ultimately if we don't need to add additional kit into the job and achieve the same result it brings the quote down and helps our chance of getting the work in the first place.

For those who came more from the alarm / security side rather than the IT side I can kind of understand why you'd want to put your own network in if you don't have that understanding of VLANs e.t.c.

We do uncover a lot of really bad work in the CCTV and access control areas through, the number of installers that still haven't managed to work out how to crimp RJ45s properly scares me.

 

When I did work directly for a school I did all this in house, but often you do find getting hold of the kit to be harder and pricing is significantly more expensive than most installers can get it with trade accounts.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Aprice

[KarlGoddard]

we've moved from doing it in-house to bringing in a specialist contractor to do it for us.

 

it saves us time and gives me one less headache of sourcing kit etc. Minor jobs I may get involved with - single internal dome camera etc - but generally I'd recommend getting in a good contractor.

 

In larger, more complex installs, I separate the job into two - data/infrastructure install and the camera install and config. I wouldn't trust a CCTV installer to be a good cabler as much as I wouldn't expect a cable installer to be able to install and config a camera.

[TechMonkey]

The reason is that often the companies doing the systems are alarm companies that moved into CCTV to offer full security and now have to put alarms and cameras on networks, but have never learnt networking. They will still be fixed on single wire alarm systems. They have learnt by rote to install a network in a single configuration and will swear blind that any other configuration isn't compatible or won't work. I have had security companies tell me that CCTV doesn't work on a school network and that our IP is wrong as we weren't using 192.168.0.1 as the gateway.

 

Find a company that does networking as well as security, not security that will do the network if they must.

 

In a previous life the Head of Estates ended up doing installs themselves, as it isn't exactly tricky, and we just provided the networking.

[psydii]

Here, IT "own" CCTV and Access Control, delegated from the Business Manager. Day to day operations handled by general admin staff / SLT (for sensitive matters). 3rd parties do the installation and maintain and support. The 3rd parties say this is one of the normal ways things like this are done, the other most commonly being complete separation from IT and existing infrastructure.

[Net-Ctrl]

That's how we got involved in CCTV and Access Control around 10 years ago - a lot of clients were struggling to find installers who stuck around and knew what they were doing. It was also a natural progression for us with our portfolio.

 

Net-Ctrl started 20 years ago as a predominantly security company (firewalls, VPN etc) - we then grew into Wi-Fi and switched around 15 years ago. At that time we were outsourcing cabling, which we brought in-house, the cabling element then led to the CCTV/Access conversation.

 

We still maintain the cyber/networking side of the business, which we still do a lot of work in - but the CCTV/Access is one area that has grown a lot over the last 5 years.