Greetings. I live in Dallas Texas - as a transplant from West Palm Beach.
We moved into an older neighborhood in the downtown area - and while
everyone is friendly, crime is a real issue. My particular neighborhood
has consistent petty crimes (garage break-ins, yard theft, and some house
burglaries). My new neighbor and I have decided that rather than join up
in the old-fashioned VIP (drive around in cars.. etc) we should take
advantage of the low cost and abundant technology in WIFI networks and WIFI
enabled cameras. Our neighborhood is approximately 1 SQ mile, made up of
many small streets, back alleys - 300 homes in all. What we are thinking
is to create outdoor WIFI hot spots that cover most alley ways and public
streets and then use WIFI enabled cameras which can access these hotspots
and provide either streaming video or take snpashots every few seconds.
Homeowners who have DSL service would be given a 'kit' which wouls support
an outdoor WIFI transceiver, or camera, or both.
What I am seeking is advice from anyone who has developed and executed a
concept such as this successfully. I am skilled at home WIFI and and a
mobile phone engineer by trade - so I understand the technology. Our goal
is to put real or dummry cameras at virtually every home (these would be
privately owned cameras observing public property) and post signs that the
neighborhood is being filmed - to discourage crime. All video/still images
would be deposited on a web server where we may even be able to recruit
MANY of our senior citizens to spend some time keeping an eye on their
neighborhood from the security of their own house (a way to help).
