Axis’ technology forms key element of award winning IP surveillance solution for Newport schools

Newport City Council has been awarded further recognition for ‘The Most Innovative use of IP Technology in the UK’ by key IT decision-maker publication, Computer Weekly this month. Newport has won the award for its work alongside Gwent Police and a number of technology partners including IP video surveillance specialist Axis Communications to specify, install and manage an innovative IP surveillance system across 27 schools in the region. The system is already generating dramatic savings for these schools.

Phil Cox, principal consultant at Newport City Council and technical leader of the project over the last three years, said: “We are delighted to have won yet another award and hope that other councils follow our example. This surveillance solution has enabled us to dramatically reduce the level of anti-social behaviour, vandalism and damage in these schools, saving £45,000 in window replacement costs alone in the year to April 2003. Staff also feel safer working late in schools as they can be escorted on camera to their cars and teacher morale has risen.”

The same Newport project recently collected ‘Best use of Technology in Government Award’ from Technology Wales 2003. It was considered to be the best example of e-business technology being used to deliver existing public services more effectively or offer new services. . The Newport schools project also collected the ‘Security Client of the Year Award’ at the Security Excellence Awards in November 2002.

The networked surveillance installation included AXIS 2400 video servers, which were deployed in schools to distribute video images from traditional analogue CCTV systems onto the network. The entire solution enabled alarm activation and relaying of video footage via third party monitoring software, supplied by an Axis Application Developer Partner, Farsight, to a central monitoring centre in the council’s civic centre on a 24x7 basis. The fixed network lines were already linked into the schools with capacity of between 256KB up to 10MB prior to the project starting. As these lines were only being used during school hours the IP-Surveillance solution utilised excess bandwidth during out-of-school hours to provide the necessary infrastructure at no extra cost.

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About Axis

Axis increases the value of network solutions. The company is an innovative market leader in network video and print servers. Axis' products and solutions are focused on applications such as security surveillance, remote monitoring and document management. The products are based on in-house developed chip technology, which is also sold to third parties.

Axis was founded in 1984 and is listed on the Stockholmsbörsen (XSSE:AXIS). Axis operates globally with offices in 14 countries and in cooperation with distributors, system integrators and OEM partners in 70 countries. Markets outside Sweden account for more than 95 % of sales. Information about Axis can be found at www.axis.com

For further information, please contact:

Dominic Bruning, UK Managing Director, Axis Communications
Phone: +44 870 162 0047
E-mail: dominic.bruning@axis.com