There are 240 miles of Cat5e and four miles of fiber. There are nearly 150 cameras, all IP-based and power over Ethernet (PoE) enabled. The cameras integrate with electronic access controls, which include biometrics. There is Wi-Fi inside the concrete-challenging facility and some staff have Android phones for text and email communications during operations and security incidents.

Retailers lost more than $37 billion to theft last year, according to an annual survey recently conducted by the University of Florida with a funding grant from ADT Commercial, a security systems integrator. The National Retail Security Survey (NRSS) preliminary results show an increase in theft by nearly $4 billion, from $33.5 billion in 2009 to $37.1 billion in 2010. 

The fire protection systems on the Miles College campus in Fairfield, Ala., have been updated by fire alarm and security integrator Protection 1 using Fire-Lite Alarms’ MS-9600UDLS addressable fire alarm systems. Utilizing an existing IP network for fire alarm reporting to Protection 1’s central station, the school was able to boost the reliability and response time of fire alarm communications while eliminating the cost of two phones lines per system.

In today’s constantly shifting economic times and rapid technology advancements, it is critical for integrators to gain new skills and new knowledge.To achieve such societal needs for installed technologies, companies must continually invest in employee education and training activities. Many installers obtain industry certifications from ESPA, CEDIA, ETA International, InfoComm and others to show their knowledge of skills. This opens up for additional training to earn Continuing Education Units (CEUs) or additional certifications.

For a company that helped pioneer technology for transmitting uncompressed high definition (HD) video with one wire over long distances, you can see pride and excitement in its news that Crestron’s third-generation technology, called DigitalMedia 8G+, enables transmission of uncompressed 1080p/60 digital video up to 330 feet using standard unshielded CAT5e wire.

When the darling of Wall Street and geeks took the stage at the early June Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Steve Jobs'  message was to embrace the cloud. What he called a “breakthrough,” Jobs walked through a multi-media presentation on his firm’s iCloud, a set of free services that work seamlessly with applications on consumers’ iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC so that users can automatically and wirelessly store content in iCloud and automatically and wirelessly push it to all types of devices.

Shipments of home automation systems will total about 1.8 million worldwide this year. And, according to ABI Research of Scottsdale, Ariz., that will set to rise sharply soon, exceeding 12 million in 2016.

Indianapolis-based Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association (CEDIA) released a new white paper — Network Security Best Practices. The document covers best practices for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) security in a residential environment based on the IEEE 802.11x and 802.3 standards.

The talk is about communication. Boston-based Ember Corp., with its low-power, wireless mesh networking technology, and Visonic Ltd., the Bloomfield, Conn., maker of wireless home security and safety systems and components, now have a partnership to integrate ZigBee communication protocols with Visonic security peripherals. The new devices will be dedicated for use with the iControl OpenHome software platform from iControl Networks of Palo Alto, Calif.