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The need for digital video support has led to a search for new architectures for surveillance networks. Such networks must be optimized for the transfer of real time digital data. Such networks already exist in the form of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) systems, however, in their current form, they are too expensive for security use. In particular, most current ATM networks employ distributed switches connected by dedicated fibre optic channels to the data sources/sinks. This architecture leads to an inefficient use of the fibre bandwidth, and a solution to this cost effectiveness problem is presented.ATM involves the transmission of information in small fixed length segments usually referred to as cells. The advantage of this transmission mode is that it allows the easy combination of different types of traffic on the same network: data, voice and video. All of these have very different characteristics, but the segmentation of data packets along with voice and video streams into small pieces means that these pieces can be intermixed statistically without the risk of incurring long delay. This paper presents an alternative ATM contribution architecture which, although compatible with current ATM equipment, offers efficiency gains when collecting data from a number of sources which are to be delivered to a few destinations.

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