• Section 889 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2019 prohibits federal agencies and their contractors or grant recipients from procuring video surveillance and other telecommunications equipment from several named Chinese manufacturers. 
• The Trade Agreements Act (TAA) regulates that several technical products and services (including hardware and software products and services) be manufactured or substantially transformed in the U.S. or a TAA-approved country.             
The big take away here is that the NDAA applies to federal government agencies and their contractors.  Many sources falsely claim that the NDAA bans all cameras made in China.  There are several well known and reputable Chinese companies that produce NDAA compliant cameras. The 2 main camera manufacturers that are prohibited under the NDAA are Hikvision and Dahua.  This is largely because these companies are linked to the CCP. 







Before the NDAA was enacted, Hikvision was the largest camera manufacturer in the world.  While the NDAA has damaged Dahua and Hikvision's  reputation and revenue, these companies still remain among the most widely used cameras in the world for 1 simple reason:  Their products are arguably the best value with a good combination of high quality and low price.  


GoView takes a balanced approach to this subject. We understand that there are organizations that cannot and should not use products made by a country openly hostile to the USA. For this reason we produce fully NDAA and TAA compliant systems for federal government use. We also understand most organizations are not governed by the NDAA or TAA and as such can choose their suppliers based on best value, lowest cost, highest quality, or any design parameters they choose. Many companies, local governments, state governments, and other organizations have chosen to use NDAA standards when purchasing surveillance technology.  We fully support this choice and we have many products that still provide an excellent value and are NDAA compliant.   


It is always important to look at the motivation behind scare tactics which is usually to influence your purchasing decisions. Here are 2 questions to consider when it comes to choosing a surveillance camera for your project.  These points assume you are not required by law to use NDAA or TAA cameras (98% of organizations worldwide)


1. Is your reasoning for purchasing an NDAA compliant system based on your concern about network safety or information security?  In most cases the GoView surveillance system runs 100% independent of your network.  The security cameras are on a private LTE connection and are not using your company network.  Further more we "airlock" the cameras on a separate ethernet port that is only accessible from the server on the trailer and the cameras are not accessible from the internet. This means that no data is being transmitted from the camera to the internet and there is no way to access the camera remotely except through the main server on the surveillance system.
                  
2. Is your reasoning philosophical or because you do not want your dollars supporting a geopolitical adversary? We respect and support this decision criteria. Due to the interconnected nature of economies and technology it can be very challenging to consistently apply this policy.  To be consistent you would also likely need to narrow your search to just TAA approved cameras, which is a much smaller list. As an example: Axis cameras, which are the typical go-to camera for the federal government, still uses parts made in non TAA countries and as such only some of their products are fully NDAA and TAA compliant. To purchase fully TAA compliant cameras, you would be limited to about 10% of the camera models currently in production.

3 Main Types of Battery Technology

Depth of Discharge (DoD)

When you start discharging a battery beyond a specific limit, it begins to suffer damage. Depth of discharge measures the percentage of the initial charge that can safely be discharged without causing harm.

Lithium Batteries

Modern lithium-ion batteries have a depth of discharge of 98%. So you can discharge almost the entire charge without damaging the unit. This provides optimal conditions for use with most of the stored power available.

AGM and Gel Batteries

Like other lead-acid batteries, the depth of discharge is about 80% when new and 50% when older. This makes them less competitive compared to lithium-ion batteries.

Winner: Lithium-ion batteries have the highest depth of discharge and a longer operating time.

License Plate Recognition has advanced rapidly in the last few years.  GoView systems utilize the latest technology to detect, recognize, log, and create actionable data from live streaming footage of license plates.  

While the technology has improved, there is still a minimum viable image quality that must be obtained for ALPR to function.  The 2 main factors are pixel density or pixels per foot (PPF) and lighting conditions.  You must have enough PPF or the math just does not work.  somewhere between 40-60 PPF are needed. If lighting conditions are not adequate, then PPF is not relevant because if your cameras lens is "blinded" by headlights or there is not enough available light then regardless of the PPF you will not have enough image quality for the ALPR to work.  Creating a quality image also must take into account the speed of the car and the angle of the camera to the license plate. 

Ideally the LPR camera will be mounted at the same height as the license plate and within 3 feet of the side of the car as it passes. The area will be well lit and the car will come to a low speed or complete stop. The camera will be focused on the front of the vehicle and the car will take up almost all the image.  The only time this is likely to happen is when cars are entering or exiting a controller parking area.  

Real world conditions are not likely to have all of the ideal conditions but measure can be taken to help.  High speed license plate detection on a multi lane road can be a difficult LPR scenario but can be achieve with the proper camera.

2 scenarios where mobile trailers may be tasked with LPR is for a retail store and also a construction site.  In these scenarios we must ensure there is adequate lighting and use PTZ cameras to zoom in on an entry/exit point.  Our LPR software has excellent capabilities to detect plates under adverse conditions.  Plate numbers can be blacklisted or whitelisted so security staff can be alerted when an unknown vehicle has entered a parking area.  Data can be machine analyzed to detect suspicious activity such as high volume of a single plate during odd hours. This data can be used to create alerts that can put security staff on higher alert.  

Organized criminal activity has been stopped in many locations using advanced LPR data with new security techniques.  Plate data can be shared with other locations to prevent criminal organization from actively targeting a single business at multiple locations.

Call GoView to discuss how ALPR can help your business or organization. 1-877-446-8439

Think of your LTE modem as a pipe. Data is the water and it flows through the pipe. The cellular tower is the main line and controls the flow of data to each device on the Wide Area Network (WAN).  The LTE router connects to the cellular network and is the portal (gateway) through which data passes to your devices. In the cases of a surveillance system, this data flows over the WAN when you access the system remotely from you device. This makes it possible to see video streams remotely, activate devices, and is one of if not the most important single device on your mobile surveillance unit.  

Most of us experience the limitations of these networks and devices on a daily or weekly basis. An example is when you are at a busy concert and  the internet on your phone is slow.  Maybe you have kids and when everyone is at home and using their device, your home network is slow.  You are streaming a movie on Netflix and it suddenly pauses while the video buffers.  We have all experienced a data bottleneck. Just like in traffic or liquid, a bottleneck occurs when there is a restriction or limiting factor along the path or data pipeline. 

One of the things we don't often consider is the capability of our own device. When it comes to LTE modems there are specific device categories.  When a device connects to a cellular tower one of the first pieces of information that device sends is the UE Category.  This tells the network the maximum capability of the device and at this point the network knows the limitations of that device and what amount of date rate the device is capable of.  

So what does this mean - in general if your LTE modem modem is a lower category, then it does not matter what speeds are available in the area because your modem may not have the capability of transmitting data at that speed.

Upload and Download Speeds: Most of us are more experienced with download speeds. When you watch a movie on your device you are downloading the video from a remote server.  The remote server is uploading the video to the network.  If you have sufficient download speed, but the remove server has too many connections you may experience a slow connection because the video is being limited by the upload speed of the remote server. The bottleneck was on the server side in this case. Let's apply this same concept to your mobile surveillance system.  If you are trying to stream video from your mobile surveillance system this connection is dependent on the download speed of your device and also the upload speed of the LTE modem built into your mobile surveillance system.  

At GoView the minimum UE Category device we use is Cat7.  This allows for 300 mb/s download and 100 mb/s upload.  This ensures that the category rating will never be the limiting factor in your being able to view video from your system. There are many other factors that could limit the speed, such as the network signal quality or noise level, and also the amount of usage on a particular cellular tower.  We can't control all the factors, but we strive to use the best quality equipment so that you have the best live streaming experience.  Video streaming speed is also crucial for live monitoring agents to be able to access the video in real time and use active measures to stop the crime.