Building Video Surveillance Multi-Service Superior Operation Platform through Opening Up and Innovation
——Success Story on ZTE Assists China Telecom with MegaEyes Service

How to further boost the added value of broadband by tapping the ever growing demand for network surveillance?

As a world-leading fixed-line operator, China Telecom has been actively exploring new service development modes to boost its operation revenue since its transformation into a full-service operator. Premium telecom customers have strong demand for high-coverage remote surveillance service. China Telecom owns all-around broadband access resources that are the most extensive in coverage. Employing network resources to develop remote surveillance service is highly significant for boosting the added value of broadband and making its service offerings more attractive.

Surveillance multimedia services are developing on a large scale. Against this backdrop, it is difficult for the traditional closed small surveillance platform to serve as a carrier-class shared platform. How to use high quality broadband resources to offer remote surveillance service and further boost the added value of broadband is a question to which China Telecom has been seeking an answer while it develops surveillance service on a large scale.

A carrier-class shared platform delivers large-scale surveillance service development capability

As China Telecom's long-term partner, ZTE understands and sticks to the thought of designing a carrier-class system platform. On that basis, ZTE assisted China Telecom in constructing an operable, manageable, and personalized carrier-class shared surveillance platform. With this platform, China Telecom is capable of developing surveillance service on a large scale. It can provide virtual independent networks to different group users. In addition, the reliability and security of the platform can be guaranteed through strict rights management.

The carrier-class shared surveillance platform provided by ZTE provides fixedline-mobile surveillance convergence. By extending wired video surveillance videos to mobile networks, users can video surveillance videos anytime anywhere; seamless overage of surveillance points is realized with wireless and portable terminals. The surveillance platform employs unified Network Management (NM) technology and supports remote carrier-class Operation & Maintenance (O&M) for system platform equipment and PU devices. This greatly improves maintenance efficiency and effectively reduces operation costs.

Through cooperation with ZTE, China Telecom built carrier-class shared platforms of large-scale surveillance applications in China Telecom's major provinces, including Jiangsu, Shanghai, Hubei, Hunan, Chongqing, Xinjiang, Guizhou, Guangxi, Heilongjiang, and Hebei. The stable, reliable carrier-class MegaEyes surveillance platforms provide powerful support for large-scale development of China Telecom’s MegaEyes surveillance service.

An open system platform integrates premium resources of the surveillance industry

Video surveillance is a mature application. How to diversify terminal products and integrate premium social resources holds the key to China Telecom providing complete surveillance functionality on a large scale and at a low cost. While building the MegaEyes system platform, China Telecom needs to incorporate premium surveillance resources of the industry to construct a superior surveillance network. ZTE's open system surveillance platform interconnects with products of other vendors through open interfaces.

Currently, ZTE's shared platform can connect to encoders of mainstream vendors such as ZTE, Hikvision, and Dahua, and interconnect with mainstream products such as intelligent image identification, TV walls of surveillance centers, and control matrices. Through an open architecture, this platform integrates premium surveillance resources of the industry, reduces service development costs, provides all-around surveillance application, and further boosts the attraction of MegaEyes service to telecom customers.

Innovative personalized applications attract premium customer groups

Different sectors have different application requirements. Making MegaEyes service meet personalized requirements is the most effective way of attracting industrial users. Customized development of the “EyeWill” video surveillance platform and PUs allows them to interconnect with industrial application systems, thus delivering a total industrial surveillance solution that is more integrated and pertinent.

“City Security Surveillance”, “Environmental Protection Surveillance”, “Internet Café Surveillance”, “Baby Online”, “Campus Surveillance”, “Video Housekeeper”, “Monitoring Operation Center (MOC) Storage”, “Access Control Surveillance”, “Intelligent Service”, and other characteristic applications have been provided through the collaboration between the platform and PUs. These applications are very attractive to industrial users and facilitate the number allocation and promotion of MegaEyes service.

ZTE’s video surveillance platform is designed to meet users’ application requirements and improve their experiences. It makes the MegaEyes service more attractive to users and facilitates service promotion and development. Currently, “City Security Surveillance”, “Small-and Medium-Sized Shops”, “Campus Surveillance”, “Environmental Protection Surveillance”, “Baby Online”, “Cybercafe Surveillance”, and other characteristic applications have been rolled out in the provincial platforms and have become an effective tool to attract users and drive large-scale, sustained development. In addition, the EyeWill video surveillance system can integrate a variety of multimedia application services, including videoconferencing, IPTV, and visual communications, which expands the development scope of MegaEyes service.

Keeping abreast of the frontiers and focus techniques, constantly creating added value

The Chinese government put forward the concept of “Experience China” in 2009, and formally brought M2M-related industries into key projects supported by Eleventh Five Year Plan and Mid- to Long-term Planning Framework 2020 for Scientific and Technological Development of Information Industry. On August 7, 2009, Premier Wen Jiabao explicitly pointed out: “Core techniques and key equipment of the sensor should be planned as early as possible to avoid detours made by computers, the Internet and mobile networks. Intensify investments in the sensor network or IOT of the special three.”

The video surveillance system is a special IOT with the visual perception capability in itself. Through effectively combining the video surveillance system with the IOT service support platform and regarding the video surveillance as a core unit of the IOT, we can make video information and perception data complement each other effectively, produce an advantageous solution, and make use of the existing video surveillance platforms of large-scale deployment to realize rapid promotion and applications of IOT services, which raise operator's competitiveness.

Now the “Eye Will” video surveillance system has integrated with the M2M platform. The first IOT vehicle surveillance management system compliant with China Telecom M2M service technical specifications was built in Shanghai to escort the World Expo.

Product development milestones

• April 2007, ZTE's video surveillance product passed the 2.0 carrier-class MegaEyes testing of Shanghai Telecom Research Institute.
• May 2007: ZTE won the bid for Chongqing Telecom's MegaEyes project. Under the contract, ZTE would build China Telecom’s first carrier-class MegaEyes commercial platform.
• June 2007: ZTE participated in the 2.5 carrier-class MegaEyes testing of Shanghai Telecom Research Institute and achieved good results.
• July 2007: ZTE grabbed the first place in the overall rankings in China Telecom's unified negotiations and tender for MegaEyes products.
• August 2007: ZTE won the bid for Hunan Telecom's MegaEyes project. The platform uses a brand-new platform version that complies with MegaEyes specifications 2.5.
• October 2007: The Hubei Telecom project reached another peak.
• Other key projects from 2008 to 2009: Shanghai Telecom, for which ZTE built a superior surveillance network for World Expo 2012 Shanghai; Jiangsu Telecom, where ZTE set an example with its EyeWill integration solution; Xinjiang Telecom, with fast construction and service deployment; Guizhou Telecom, which continued to use the MegaEyes platform; and Guangxi Telecom, which again selected ZTE's EyeWill solution.
• 2009–2010: ZTE video surveillance integrated with the Internet of Things (IOT). The first IOT vehicle surveillance management system compliant with China Telecom M2M service technical specifications was built in Shanghai to escort the World Expo.

With ZTE's product and technology support, China Telecom built MegaEyes platforms that are capable of carrier-class operation. Through innovations in application scenarios and functionality, these platforms provide strong support for the large-scale development and operation of the operator's MegaEyes service.ZTE won concerted praise from China Telecom, its research institute, and its provincial branches for the resources we put into R&D, the technical accumulation, and the product quality of our MegaEyes surveillance products.