Commercial Security Camera Systems and IP Video Surveillance

What a commercial surveillance system from Telelink includes#

Telelink Business Services is a licensed C-7 Low Voltage Systems Contractor, CSLB License #472017. We design, cable, mount, aim and configure IP camera systems for multifamily and senior housing, state and local government facilities, campuses, offices and warehouses across California. Three of our four published projects include surveillance: an occupied multifamily renovation at Little Tokyo Towers in Los Angeles, an occupied senior housing renovation at Horton House in San Diego, and a tenant improvement for the State Controller’s Office in Sacramento.

A complete scope from us covers:

• Coverage design from the floor plan, with each camera’s location, field of view, and purpose written down
• Cat6 or Cat6A cabling from every camera to the nearest telecom room, tested and labeled to the building’s scheme
• PoE switching, VLAN segmentation, and bandwidth planning
• Cameras, mounts, junction boxes, and conduit stubs where the architecture calls for them
• Recording on a network video recorder, in the cloud, or a hybrid of the two
• User accounts, retention settings, and integration with access control and intercom
• As-built drawings, a camera schedule, and manufacturer documentation for the compliance file

We install and configure Cisco Meraki MV directly, and we install Axis, Hanwha Vision, Avigilon, Verkada and Ubiquiti UniFi Protect when your specification calls for them. Every platform gets the same treatment: a written coverage plan, a tested cable plant, and a configuration that someone other than us can administer.

Camera types and where each one belongs#

The form factor is a placement decision, not a style decision. Each type solves a specific viewing problem and creates a specific mounting problem.

Type	Where it earns its place	Watch for
Dome	Corridors, lobbies, elevators, anywhere vandal resistance and a discreet look matter	Ceiling height; a dome at 14 feet sees the tops of heads
Bullet	Parking lots, building perimeters, long views down a fence line or driveway	Obvious, which is sometimes the point; needs a solid mount and a drip loop
Multisensor	Building corners, corridor intersections, large open rooms	One drop and one license for three or four views; heavier, so check the mount
PTZ	Large yards, loading docks, campuses with staffed monitoring	Only records where it is pointed; pair with fixed cameras for continuous coverage
Fisheye	Small lobbies, break rooms, package rooms, retail floors	360 degree coverage with dewarping in software; low detail toward the edges

On most commercial buildings the count is dominated by domes inside and bullets or multisensors outside. PTZ cameras earn their cost only where a person is watching, and fisheyes work in rooms small enough that the edge distortion never matters.

Coverage design: resolution, lens and low light in plain terms#

Resolution alone does not tell you what a camera will show. What matters is how many pixels land on the subject at the distance you care about. A wide lens spreads a camera’s pixels across a large scene, so each person in that scene gets fewer of them. A narrow lens concentrates the same pixels on a smaller area. A 4 megapixel camera with a wide lens will show you that someone walked through a parking lot at 80 feet. It will not give you a face you could hand to police.

The rule of thumb we plan against has three tiers. Detecting activity needs the fewest pixels on target. Recognizing a person you already know needs more. Identifying an unknown person or reading a license plate needs the most. For each camera we write down the purpose of the view (identify at the entry door, detect along the fence, overview of the lot) and pick resolution, lens and mounting height to match. Our camera coverage calculator works the same tradeoffs for a quick check before a site walk.

Low light is where most disappointing systems fail. Cameras that look fine at noon produce smeared, noisy footage at 2 a.m. in a parking structure. We look at the actual light levels where the camera will live, specify sensors and lenses rated for them, use infrared illumination where color is not required, and use wide dynamic range where a camera faces a glass door with daylight behind it. In a lobby with a bright exterior door, WDR is the difference between a face and a silhouette.

Recording: NVR, cloud, hybrid, and how long to keep footage#

Where the video lives is the first decision that changes the budget.

Network video recorder. An appliance in the telecom room with local storage. Lowest ongoing cost, full resolution retained, keeps recording if the internet connection drops. You own the hardware, so you also own drive replacements, firmware updates, and the risk that the recorder leaves with an intruder unless it sits in a locked room.

Cloud recording. Cameras upload to a hosted platform and you pay per camera per year. No recorder to maintain, remote access from anywhere, updates handled by the vendor. Upload bandwidth becomes a design input, and the subscription is a permanent line in the operating budget.

Edge storage with cloud management. Cisco Meraki MV cameras store video on the camera itself and use the cloud for management, search and retrieval. That removes the recorder from the room and keeps upload traffic low, since only the clips someone asks for leave the building. Several other platforms offer a local gateway plus cloud archive as a middle path.

Retention is a policy decision that becomes a storage calculation. Thirty days is a common starting point for commercial properties. Owners with a lender or insurer requirement, agencies with public records obligations, and housing programs with their own standards may need longer. We size storage from the camera count, resolution, frame rate, and how much motion the scene sees, then confirm the actual retention after the system has run for two weeks and adjust before closeout.

Network: PoE, VLANs, bandwidth and integration#

Every IP camera is a network device and should be treated as one. We put cameras on their own VLAN, separate from staff computers, tenant Wi-Fi and building automation, so a compromised camera cannot see anything but the recorder. Management interfaces are not exposed to the internet. Default passwords are changed and recorded before the camera leaves the bench, and the credentials are turned over to the owner, not kept by us.

Power over Ethernet feeds most fixed cameras from the switch at 802.3af or 802.3at levels. PTZ cameras, multisensors with heaters, and cameras with built-in illuminators often need 802.3at or 802.3bt, and a switch budget that was sized for phones will not carry them. We count the PoE budget per switch, not per port, and specify Cat6A on runs that will carry higher power in bundles.

Cabling follows the same standard as the rest of the building: ANSI/TIA-568 balanced twisted pair, certified per link and labeled to the same scheme as the data drops, so a camera run is documented the same way as a workstation run.

Where video ties into doors, the camera platform receives events from the access control system so an operator can click a door alarm and see the clip. Intercom calls from a lobby panel can bring up the entry camera the same way. That integration is configured, tested door by door, and shown in the closeout package rather than left as a feature the software could do.

NDAA Section 889 and 2 CFR 200.216 on federally funded work#

If your project touches federal money, the camera manufacturer is a compliance question before it is a technical one. Section 889 of the FY2019 NDAA bars federal agencies from procuring covered video surveillance and telecommunications equipment from Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hangzhou Hikvision, Dahua, and their subsidiaries and affiliates. 2 CFR 200.216 extends that prohibition to federal grant and loan funds, which is how it reaches HUD-assisted housing, public agency projects with federal participation, and many campus and clinic projects.

The trap is white-label equipment. A large share of low-cost cameras and recorders sold under other brand names are manufactured by Hikvision or Dahua, and the box does not say so. The fix is to specify the actual manufacturer and keep the paperwork. We provide manufacturer letters and model-level documentation with submittals for Axis, Hanwha Vision, Avigilon, Verkada, Cisco Meraki MV, and Ubiquiti UniFi Protect, verified per model at the time of submittal, because product lines change. Our guide to NDAA Section 889 compliant cameras in California walks through how to audit an existing system and what language to put in the specification.

Privacy, signage and audio in California#

Cameras belong where people do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy: entrances, corridors, lobbies, parking, loading docks, mail and package rooms, elevators, mechanical rooms, and building perimeters. They do not belong in restrooms, locker rooms, changing areas, or aimed into unit interiors. In multifamily and senior housing we avoid views that look through unit doors or windows, and we document the field of view of every camera so the owner can show exactly what is and is not recorded.

Audio is a separate question. California treats the recording of private conversations differently from video, and consent rules apply. Our default is to leave microphones disabled on commercial camera systems unless the owner’s counsel has reviewed the use, and to note the setting in the closeout.

Signage stating that the property is under video surveillance is a sound practice for employee and visitor awareness, and some owner policies and insurers require it. Cameras are one part of a building’s security plan, not the whole of it; they work best alongside access control and a clear plan for who reviews footage and when.

Next step#

Send us the floor plan, the areas you need covered, and whether federal funds are involved, and we will return a camera schedule and a bid. Use request a bid to upload drawings. General contractors building a Division 28 bid list can start at for general contractors for our prequalification packet.