Limerick City and County Council streamlines CCTV management with IoT solutions

Discover how Limerick City and County Council leveraged Internet of Things (IoT) technology to enhance CCTV monitoring and reduce costs.

Overcoming connectivity and monitoring challenges

Limerick City and County Council (CCC) has partnered with Three for mobile and broadband services for several years, however a challenge they raised was managing CCTV deployments in towns and villages across the Limerick hinterland. In their existing process, if data was required from a camera, the council depended on manual inspections - an engineer and in some cases a cherry picker team had to be dispatched, leading to high costs and operational inefficiencies. Additionally, only manual checks could confirm if a camera was offline, resulting in unpredictable up-time. Three’s IoT, account management, and solution architecture teams collaborated with Limerick CCC to design a tailored solution.

A resilient IoT solution for remote monitoring

The service combines SIMs, cellular routers, and a managed service wrap to ensure resilient connectivity. The SIMs offer multi-network roaming, guaranteeing consistent coverage, and Limerick CCC can self-manage connectivity via a dedicated private network using a SIM Control and Device Management Platform.

The solution includes weatherproof enclosures housing the routers and SIMs, providing a secure private network between the cameras, NVRs, and the council’s monitoring systems. Continuous monitoring by Limerick CCC’s operations team ensures operational status is always visible.

This end-to-end solution, supported by Three, meets all regulatory requirements for data collection and monitoring. Head of Digital Strategy for the council, Alan Dooley, praise the solution:

"Limerick City and County Council manages CCTV systems throughout the city and 14 towns across the county. While some towns had access to traditional broadband, most locations faced significant challenges in securing network access without fixed-line broadband. The engineers at Three understood our problem and designed a solution that enabled remote monitoring and maintenance of critical CCTV devices with built-in robust resiliency, creating a replicable solution. This product has been working flawlessly, addressing key challenges for networked devices in typically unconnectable environments and paving the way for future connectivity solutions."

Cost savings and enhanced efficiency

Since implementing the IoT solution, Limerick City and County Council has significantly reduced the costs associated with supporting CCTV systems while greatly improving uptime. Engineers no longer need to be dispatched to retrieve footage, resulting in substantial operational efficiencies and budgetary savings.

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