David Charney, President of Stealth Monitoring, was a featured speaker in the Time Warner Cable conference The New Network: Fueling the Transformation of Business Models, Processes and Applications #newnettransform. The panel of experts with host Michael Kennedy, Principal Analyst for ACG Research, explained:
- Why you should reconsider network planning assumptions to support shifting user demands
- How managed services can deliver enterprise-class solutions for your midsize business
- The steps a live video surveillance company took to transform its business and leapfrog competitors
- How cloud applications can enable an anytime, anywhere business model
Here are Mr. Charney’s edited comments.
David Charney: Thank you for allowing us to participate in this panel. The video you are about to see shows our proactive live video surveillance services in real time. The subject happens to be a car dealership. You will see individuals entering the car dealership and seizing their client’s vehicles. The vehicles happen have the keys inside of them. They drive the vehicles out of the service area. Stealth operators contact the police and as seen in the video, the police arrive and the culprits are apprehended.
My name’s David Charney. I’m the President of the company. We are a national live video surveillance company. What’s unique about our services and our solution offering is we’re completely proactive in how we do things. We watch your cameras proactively, which means we specialize in outdoor assets and being able to prevent the crimes as best we can, early as we can in the process. We have national clients in many different industries. We specialize in commercial assets, including car dealerships, industrial real estate, self-storage facilities. We have hundreds of clients across the country.
We are happy to provide demos of our services. There’s a diagram that’s being shown now that shows the importance of the cloud and how it has changed our industry. When camera surveillance came out, it was CCTV. Eventually Internet connections were available. But they were weak. IP cameras now have become much more competitive. So people are now installing IP cameras with competitive Internet connections nationwide. It’s important being proactive, that we are able to watch cameras in real-time to prevent crimes. Our clients and Stealth are able to take advantage of high speed Internet data to offer a much better solution.
Whether it’s studying the data or the analytics or real time detection that camera seven, somewhere in the United States, went down a few minutes ago our clients can take action proactively instead of after the fact. The ability for us to be proactive is very powerful in our industry and it makes us stand out from the rest. So, that’s just sort of a quick background of Stealth Monitoring. We are a Texas-based business with clients in many states. Today we watch 9,000 video cameras every single night in our data control video monitoring centers. We look forward to answering all kinds of questions from viewers in the field. Thank you for your time.
Michael Kennedy: What makes this new cloud network offerings so attractive compared to what we did before.
David Charney: I think the two words I’m hearing consistently is getting information on a timely basis. it’s about being proactive and seeing things earlier than traditionally possible.
It’s also about data. The old days of just getting data to a central repository is getting much easier with the cloud and central storage. Having connectivity everywhere and translating that data into valuable information and getting it where it’s usable and tactical with the right level of granularity is very fundamental to all the changes. In our business of course, it’s being able to see the culprits a few seconds earlier and the police being dispatched or activating an audible speaker. The audible warning could scare them away and save the client money on guard expenses or damage to the property. So, I think it’s one of those things, which is just getting more information in a valuable format, earlier in the cycle in order to make decisions and improve your business.
Michael Kennedy: How are new networking capabilities changing customer’s expectations and the competitive landscape.
David Charney: It’s about distinguishing ourselves. The days of just installing cameras are long gone. Clients expect us to do full network connectivity analysis now. You can’t have a situation where there is a liability or a problem with the camera that doesn’t show what it’s supposed to be recording. The excuse that I just have footage after the fact on a car accident in my parking lot or when a bad guy broke in is unacceptable. We’re able to proactively run and watch the business effectively and the networking and data on the backside. What if I can save 60% of all truck rolls by doing things remotely? By restarting cameras, restarting wireless devices, rebooting, uploading firmware and changing settings. What if I can detect and check every single device?
There are hundreds of devices per site location. Every one of those devices is being captured into a dataset that we look at and analyze, some of which is used in real time. To say to a client we lost connectivity if there a power outrage. It can also be such a simple thing as a chunk of cameras went out in the middle of the day and we detect and take action. Maybe a power outage in the back building or did someone change a port setting? We’re able to proactively tell our customers and offer them a service level they’ve never even dreamed of. They’re shocked to find out that we proactively check those kinds of things. This makes us unique in the industry.
Michael Kennedy: High resolution video takes up a huge amount of space and bandwidth. How does that affect the video service provider who’s got to receive, process, and manage it? Are client locations typically set up to send that volume of data back to the provider?
David Charney: Video does take a ton of space and bandwidth. Just to give you some metrics, a 1.3 megapixel IP camera can produce up 10 Mbps worth of video content. When our average client installs anywhere from 30 to hundreds of cameras, they can’t even order an internet connection at that point that can stream all that data in real time at full quality.
We use a lot of video analytic engines that help us detect what kind of motions should we be sending back to be watched. That makes us unique and helps us not have to send every bit of motion.
So, a big part of making smart decisions on how to handle that type of information is sending a compressed version back to be monitored. If it’s something we are getting really excited about and it’s a juicy situation with criminal intent, then we might stream it at a much higher quality.
The end users need anywhere from 1.5 to 10 MB and we’re usually stocking anywhere from 12 to 24 terabytes in NVRs for our client’s side. What comes back here is a smaller version of that.
About Stealth
Stealth proactive live surveillance can detect and deter crime for greater security while reducing security guard and other expenses. A Stealth operator can see unusual activity, activate an audible warning to deter thieves, and call the local police. Please contact Stealth today for more information to protect your commercial property. Visit our web site to see actual videos of criminals being apprehended.
