Have you ever felt like everywhere you go, someone is watching you, Big brother style? Well this should be a big concern for those who are about or think of committing any offense on the streets of Kampala as the Government of Uganda through Uganda Police is undertaking a project called the Integrated Public Safety Network. The project being rolled out, is aimed to keep the Kampala streets safe from any criminal activities and of course crack down on any suspected terrorist activities by use of CCTV surveillance cameras installed around Kampala.
[signoff predefined=”Movie Review Signoff” icon=”icon-book”]Closed-circuit television (CCTV) is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly transmitted, though it may employ point to point (P2P), point to multipoint, or mesh wireless links. Though almost all video cameras fit this definition, the term is most often applied to those used for surveillance in areas that may need monitoring such as banks, casinos, airports, military installations, and convenience stores. – Wikipedia [/signoff]
Integrated Public Safety Network was already in existence
Such a project is not new to this city, in 2007 during Common Wealth Summit (CHOGAM) there was a ‘mini’ deployment of CCTVs by government around certain parts of Kampala using MTN’s wireless WiMAX network as a transmission
link back to the Police monitoring center. The government went back to the drawing board and have now hatched the Integrated Public Safety Network project that seems to be bigger and better, and will encompass earlier and new implementations to cover a larger part of the city.
They project will not largely relay on MTN’s WiMAX infrastructure for connectivity as it was before, but instead use the existing fiber backbone infrastructure from the e-government project (under NITA-U) to connect the different CCTVs. There is no word on project completion yet, but all we can say this is a welcome gesture on the government’s side to fight crime (i don’t know if spying falls under the same category). We are yet to see whether the complete form of this Integrated Public Safety Network project will bear any fruit or see the day of light in the near future.
