The Bandwidth Myth: Why Cloud Video Management is No Longer Constrained

While it's true that bandwidth has historically been a concern for multi-site businesses, particularly those with bandwidth-intensive applications like video surveillance, it's important to recognize that the technological landscape has dramatically shifted.

Advancements in network infrastructure and video compression technology have largely mitigated these concerns, yet the perception of bandwidth as a barrier to cloud adoption persists. This outdated mindset can hinder businesses from embracing the full potential of cloud-based solutions, preventing them from capitalizing on the numerous benefits they offer.

It's understandable why bandwidth concerns linger in the minds of some. In the not-so-distant past, accessing video footage remotely from multiple locations often meant relying on VPNs and other tunneling technologies to establish a connection with on-site systems. This approach placed a significant burden on network resources, especially when multiple users needed simultaneous access, for example, during a time-sensitive loss prevention investigation or a compliance audit. In such scenarios, the surge in bandwidth demand could disrupt other mission-critical services, such as payment processing, inventory management, or even basic communication tools, impacting day-to-day operations.

Faced with the potential disruption to core business functions, many organizations relegated video surveillance to a reactive role, primarily used for investigating major loss prevention incidents. The idea of proactively leveraging video to improve operational efficiency, identify subtle patterns of loss, or monitor employee behavior for customer experience opportunities remained largely untapped. Bandwidth constraints effectively confined video data to a silo, limiting its accessibility and hindering its potential to generate valuable insights beyond traditional security applications.