MegaFon will write passengers on video

The MegaFon company is going to create a video surveillance system in the St. Petersburg subway. The first stage of the project - providing tunnels of the subway with communication 2G/GSM and Internet access 3G - will be complete in the fall of this year. A system will allow to make in each car of the St. Petersburg subway a video using IP cameras.

The director of new technologies and services of Northwest branch of JSC "MegaFon" Roman Rudakov at the Student's debatable blitz forum in St. Petersburg state engineering and economic the university told what he announced the spbIT portal yesterday about it. According to him, the video surveillance system will allow to make record in cars - though low quality, but sufficient for fixation of objects.

The press secretary of Northwest branch of MegaFon Lyudmila Chekhova told ComNews that to disclose project details prematurely, having noted, however, that in this project MegaFon provides only technology - the radiating cable.

Metrocom Ltd has the most large-scale telecommunication infrastructure in the St. Petersburg subway. As earlier reported ComNews, in October, 2010 MegaFon became the only owner of Metrocom, having taken 55% of the shares owned by St. Petersburg and 45% of the stocks belonging to MST company. At the same time a part of government contracts of Metrocom passed to MegaFon (see ComNews news of October 8, 2010). The CEO of Metrocom Dmitry Savin did not begin to tell about video surveillance system implementation yesterday, having recommended to address to the press service of MegaFon.

In June MegaFon brought into commercial operation communication services in tunnels of the St. Petersburg subway on all five branches. The operator uses a triax antenna cable in tunnels. It works as the continuous antenna providing radio-frequency radiation. These cables are widely used for achievement of a scope in screened zones which cannot be effectively covered by the point radiating antennas (transport tunnels, mines, metal vessels, nuclear power plants and constructions with a metal framework). The operator acts within the tripartite agreement with administration of St. Petersburg and the St. Petersburg subway (see ComNews news of June 10, 2011).

The triax cable of MegaFon in the subway allows to render communication services 2G (voice), 3G (data transmission) and in the TETRA standard. "The first stage - laying of the radiating cable in tunnels - it is going to complete in the fall of 2011 then all tunnels will be provided with communication, at the same time in the longest of them on the maximum removal from stations the breaks in a covering connected with signal attenuation in the radiating cable are possible, - Lyudmila Chekhova specified. - Installation of add-on radio modules is necessary for elimination of gaps. In St. Petersburg the similar project yet was never implemented therefore to make the decision on where and how to put radio modules, it is possible only after completion of all works on cable laying, setup of network and carrying out a complex of measuring works which will be carried out in the fall of 2011. Based on measurements the plan for improvement of quality of a covering in the middle of long tunnels will be made. At the second stage which will be completed in 2012 the program for improvement of quality of a covering will be implemented".

In the Moscow subway there are already surveillance cameras in cars, they work based on Wi-Fi-network of the subway. Earlier told the reporter of ComNews a source in VimpelCom about it (see ComNews news of September 14, 2011).

The press service of MTS says that the company cooperates with transport enterprises regarding video surveillance systems too. "MTS installed monitoring systems of city transport using M2M-services in Moscow, Sochi, Krasnodar, Astrakhan, Krasnoyarsk, Samara, Kazan, Ufa, Saratov and Ryazan", - the representative of the press service of the company told the reporter of ComNews.

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