Cernium, Sprint announce technology partnership

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Video analytics supplier Cernium, whose CheckVideo solution has been making the case for proactive verification of alarms for priority response from municipalities along with RSI, on June 8 announced a technology partnership with wireless provider Sprint at the ESX show here.

Security Systems News sat down with several executives from Cernium including their new CEO, John Estrada, who joined the company five weeks ago. Estrada comes to Cernium from the IT world, where among other things, he founded a company called ServiceBench, which provides software in the warranty industry for client and consumer electronics. “We're excited to expand our product line,” he said. “This is a huge addition, and we're excited about the partnership.”

Cernium executives are calling the CheckVideo|Sprint 3G solution—the CV43G—the first wireless broadband video surveillance and recording solution.

According to Cernium VP of the Security & Alarm Division Phil Robertson, the partnership made good sense for the dealer channel and central stations.

"Dealers can go back to accounts they've already sold and offer this to increase value," Robertson told Security Systems News. "Because this isn't simply a motion detector tied to a camera—it's real video intelligence—it will make efficiency at the central station much better. Operators aren't getting every one of the hundreds of motion-activated video clips, they aren't wasting time trying to see what triggered the alarm."

A key benefit for dealers and end users is the fact that it runs independent of the end user's IT network. Another benefit for dealers, Robertson said, is that fact that Sprint will be providing leads to Cernium partners.

In a previous interview with SSN, the president of New York-based central station Amcest, which monitors the CheckVideo solution, praised Cernium's analytics.

"Analytics is what enables Amcest to reliably, and cost-effectively, provide video monitoring services. We found that simple motion detection was often mistaken for video intelligence," Amcest president Fred Rosenfeld said. "CheckVideo provides us true analytics at a price point we simply did not find in any other system."

Mike Hughes who is in business development with Sprint's Emerging Solutions Group said the partnership was a good fit.

"Sprint is CDMA [Code Division Multiple Access], which is anti-eavesdropping and anti-jamming,” Hughes said. "Being able to leverage the wireless network makes it a very simple solution for Cernium."

Security Systems News has been covering recent changes in communications pathways and has focused specifically on GSM, which is the wireless format of choice for the security industry. AT&T's recent purchase of T-Mobile concerned some due to the lack of players in the GSM market, while others insisted that, should the need arise, CDMA would come into play/