Virtual Guard Services ready to expand

ATLANTA--Virtual Guard Services, a nationwide video monitoring service based here, is ready to expand. VGS president Scott Warshaw said the company, which has been quietly in operation for the past two years, has recently been expanding its authorized dealer program into other areas. "We're doing work in California, Texas, Alabama," he said. "VGS partners with dealers across the country who do CCTV, and they've begun offering VGS as an extra service." VGS grew out of a need in the channel, Warshaw said, for affordable, live, 24/7/365 security solutions. "VGS is basically live video monitoring. There are a million companies doing [monitoring]. The problem is everyone else is basically proprietary," said Sonny Molu, head of research and development at VGS, and senior systems engineer for iLink, a manufacturer, along with AverMedia, of the hardware and software used by the systems VGS dealers sell and install. "Basically," said Warshaw, "when someone buys a CCTV system, they need one or two things. They need loss prevention for normal operating hours, and they also need--and this is where VGS comes in--they need after-hours security." "Say somebody comes onto your property," Warshaw continued, "and the system's recording them. The business owner comes in and finds the damage, and goes to his system to review the captured footage, but it's too late. With VGS, we build in artificial intelligence. We build in a perimeter. When that perimeter is broken, the system wakes up first one camera, and then more as the threat is assessed." And since everything is monitored live, the security breach is classed according to threat level and dealt with by the VGS central station in real time. The VGS system can be used for video verification to cut down on false alarms, and it also gives its monitoring agents the ability to issue an audible warning to intruders once the perimeter is broken. "Its very proactive, whereas a typical alarm system is reactive. Our people are highly trained on how to deal with visual data," Warshaw said. Warshaw said that it is that real-time prevention at a low cost that sets VGS apart, while noting that VGS is not just a scheduled video capture or guard tour: "A VGS system is live and could go for as low as $75 a month, based on the area of the perimeter and the amount of possible activity."