By: Damion Dick
When it comes to accessing your newly installed CCTV cameras/system outside of your home or business you have a few options. You can use VPNs, port forwarding or some type of point to point software/app to communicate with your system but all of that is reliant upon which internet service provider (ISP) you choose and how they provide the service in relation to your camera system.
What is an ISP?
According to investopedia.com an Internet service provider (ISP) is a company that provides web access to both businesses and consumers. ISPs may also provide other services such as email services, domain registration, web hosting, and browser services.
Today we are going to look at a few of them that are available in Trinidad and Tobago namely, Flow, Digicel, B-Mobile(Amplia), and Green dot.
FLOW
Photo from Flow's Website
Let’s look at Flow. Now when we visit Flow’s website we can go to their plans and see the pricing for the plans and we see they have three tiers: Standard, Select, and Premium.
If using Peer 2 Peer (P2P) to connect to your cameras then any plan will suffice.
If you need port forwarding, VPN, or anything that requires making adjustments to the router configuration you start at the Select plan and upwards, or get a business plan/Static IP from them (contact their sales for more info).
Be mindful the important factor here is UPLOAD SPEEDS.
Choose according to your need and/or budget.
Digicel
Photo from Digicel's Website
Let’s look at Digicel. Now when we visit Digicel’s website we can go to their plans and see the pricing for the plans and we see they have three tiers: 100Mbps, 250Mbps, and 500Mbps.
If using Peer 2 Peer (P2P) to connect to your cameras then any plan will suffice.
If you need port forwarding, VPN, or anything that requires making adjustments to the router configuration you need to get a business plan/Static IP from them (contact their sales for more info), otherwise, when you port forward or make changes to the ports on the router’s firewall, those changes are either canceled, closed or reverted for “Security” reasons after a random period of time.
Once again, the important factor here is UPLOAD SPEEDS and theirs appear to be fantastic for uploading/streaming so your cameras will have little issues there.
Choose according to your need and/or budget.
B-Mobile (Amplia)
Photo from Amplia's Website
Next up is Amplia. They offer fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) internet and have a varying amount of speeds and different plans to choose from.
Their packages start at $200 TTD for 25 Mbps down and 15 Mbps up, all the way to $850 TTD for 1 gigabit-per-second down and 500 Mbps up.
If using Peer 2 Peer (P2P) to connect to your cameras then any plan will suffice.
However, if you intend to do any type of configuration or alteration on the router you would have to call their technical support team and they will do it on your behalf because they do not allow anyone to access their router.
Also if you would like to forward ports and have more control over your network traffic you would have to pay them a one-time fee to open access via a physical port on their router which they would then configure a static IP giving you a non-NATed external IP address.
It is recommended however, that if you get this static IP you should connect a router or firewall onto it and thereby have control over that segment of your network instead of it going directly to your DVR/NVR.
Green Dot
Photo from Green Dot's Website
Now last but not least we have Green Dot.
Green Dot has a unique offering in that it offers from 3Mbps, 10Mbps, 15Mbps and up to 20 Mbps(not sure of upload speeds) and you can either pay month-to-month or pay the year in advance you could even go as far as having a 3-year contract.
However, in our opinion, the pricing is a bit high but one must take into consideration where their service is exactly.
Their clients make up those in the hard-to-reach places where fiber cable and internet is not found readily accessible, the rural areas.
Some of those places have been pre-wired with one provider or another and the customer may not like their(other ISP) service.
What they offer is a point to point system that basically uses Wi-Fi antennas that connect to a main tower that relays the signal back to the main office.
This has its advantages and disadvantages. (TBD another time)
Do your research or consult a professional to see if this is what you need. If you have options you can choose something else that is less complicated, less costly and get a higher bandwidth. If you don’t have those options then this is your choice.
That being said when it comes to surveillance you would have to be expecting to use the lower resolution of your streaming for your cameras as the higher resolutions may max out the upload bandwidth capabilities of your internet connection.
Conclusion:
We know there are many more out there other than the ones we have highlighted here, but these are the ones that we have encountered mostly in the field and if we have encountered others it’s a one-off case here and there.
Do some more research, look at the plans, even call their Sales Department or consult professionals like us to find out more details before deciding on which one of these internet service providers will provide your connection for your security systems.
I hope this has been helpful to someone who may be considering how to upgrade their ISP and how it would affect access to their surveillance systems.
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