High-tech cameras to boost security

PHUKET: Provided that the money is forthcoming, 100 security cameras using the latest-generation Internet communications protocol will be installed at 70 points across the island, including the tourist areas of Patong, Karon and Kata, to deter crime and monitor traffic flow.

Manoo Ordeedolchest, President of the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa), told the Gazette, “The idea originally came from the former Phuket governor [Pongpayome Vasaputi] to use closed-circuit cameras to prevent crime and to keep an eye on tourist areas for added security.”

Sipa’s Acting Manager in Phuket, Rattana Wetprasit, added that the system could also be used to keep an eye on traffic.

The idea was floated in 2000, when such a project would have cost 200 million baht. Today, however, thanks to plunging prices of cameras and software, the project is budgeted to cost 45 million baht.

The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Ministry is expected to pay about 20 million baht for the cameras and the network, with the Phuket Provincial Administration Organization (OrBorJor) providing about 25 million baht for a monitoring center.

The cameras to be used will support IPv6 (Internet protocol version 6), a communications protocol which is currently being deployed in the latest electronic devices, including mobile phones and online media players, and which allows greatly improved quality of streaming media.

The proposed use of IPv6 bodes well for technological advancement on the island; if the project gets the go-ahead, Phuket will be the first place in Thailand to use it.

That said, in the US as recently as March this year, use of the protocol for supporting entire networks was still in the final test stages.

Dr Manoo said the cameras will probably be networked initially using cable because current government regulations do not allow use of the high frequencies needed to network them wirelessly.