With a transition from analog to digital video surveillance continuing, there remains a crucial requirement for reliable transmission of the video signal during today's period of co-existence. With many legacy installations, it has been coaxial cable handling images from a camera to monitoring or recording or both. Coax has its limitations: restricted transmission distance, signal degradation over long cable runs, and interference, to name a few.

Networking, digital and Internet Protocol (IP) have ushered in Cat 5/Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) cable and highspeed Ethernet, employing IP to carry the digitalized video images. In some installations, wireless transmission - radio frequency, microwave, WiFi and mesh nets - play a role. Most enterprise security video designs are not totally wireless. Instead, the technology is applied to meet certain geographic or operational challenges.