K&A shifts background to forefront

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.--Building upon its success with wireless first responder product offerings, K&A Wireless developed a wireless product suite directed toward the security market and launched it in the spring of 2005. The company, which is a solutions provider for wireless and Internet-related products and applications, rolled out a concept it calls direct mobile videocasting, which is a means of obtaining additional video information from a mobile camera that transmits information through an internal network. According to Kamil Agi, president and chief executive officer of the company, the system's advantage is its capability of obtaining video information in places a stationary CCTV camera cannot. "What we are doing is combining first responder technology into surveillance," Agi said. "We are convinced that this is the missing piece." What users may be missing, according to Agi, is the ability to respond to an incident where a fixed CCTV camera cannot see. By using K&A Wireless' system, a responder, such as a security guard, can investigate an alarm personally and feed images back to the necessary parties. "CCTV cannot cover everywhere," Agi said. The suite of products developed under the concept include handheld receivers and transmitters, IP receivers and EYE-View, a real-time, mobile wireless video system that is capable of transmitting analog video signals across a network. Agi said the products are viable in any area where a CCTV system is in play and the company will focus on approaching key players who are deploying CCTV, such as the city of New Orleans. "Our system takes a CCTV system and makes it better," said Max Lopez, director of operations at the company. "Together it is a much more versatile system. The idea is that we can see what stationary cameras can't." Lopez noted that one of the reasons the company developed the system was because of requests from the industry. He also said technology has been moving towards this offering. "One of the reasons we felt this was a good time was because technology is more wireless today," he said. "Everything is going this route." Agi said response to the system has been favorable since the product's release earlier this year. Since May, the company has signed on three distributors and will continue to build that network along with the company's direct mobile videocasting idea. "What I want in the next year is for the industry to say, 'Yes, I know what direct mobile videocasting is and I understand,'" he said.