In 2003, Ayala Land, Inc. and Evergreen Holdings, Inc., of the Campos Group, partnered to spearhead the development of Bonifacio Global City’s 240 hectares to become the vibrant home and lifestyle destination for many urban Filipinos. In the same year, Bonifacio Global City Estate Association (BGCEA) entered a landmark partnership with the Bases Conversion & Development Authority (BCDA) to reshape and redevelop Bonifacio Global City (BGC) into a world-class business and residential center.

The Road to Transformation

Bonifacio Global City Estate Association (BGCEA) is tasked with building administration, maintenance, and special technical services for BGC. As an integrated property management service, one of BGCEA’s first tasks was ensuring that the city have the right infrastructure to manage and maintain security.

Beyond that, the city’s previous surveillance setup consisted primarily of low-definition analog cameras that did not meet safety protection requirements. Captured surveillance footage was too low in resolution and lacked the kind of detail needed by law enforcement to further investigations. Car license plates were unreadable. Manual conversion for all videos from analogue to digital, coupled with serious storage constraints, meant that they were not kept for very long after conversion.

With decentralized camera surveillance, it was difficult to get the whole picture to make cohesive analysis of footage when required. Obstacles included the poor pre-existing network infrastructure, including limited fiber networks to support the image data that needed to be transferred, and expensive optical fiber deployment.

All these issues severely hampered law enforcement and crime prevention efforts. Giving the city a larger view of public security also meant that the surveillance solution had to be connected and centrally managed.

According to Mr. Rodney M. Medrano, executive director of BGCEA, “With the thriving success the city has enjoyed with businesses and residents alike, we wanted to ensure that public safety remains a top priority, and that means overcoming any issues with the underlying security and network infrastructure.”

Initial contact with Huawei

Any solution proposed to upgrade the city’s security infrastructure would need to ensure that surveillance would be captured in high definition. Moreover, monitoring points for installed networked cameras needed to be evenly distributed to ensure comprehensive coverage of the city.

Finally, these images must be transmitted across varying distances, unblocked by high-rise buildings across the city’s one-square mile.

Huawei worked tirelessly with BGCEA to conduct several technical seminars, with global solutions experts from Huawei involved in the planning and design as part of the discovery process.

While competing vendors were considered, none were able to offer end-to-end development of a solution that addressed all of the city’s public security concerns.

“We were thoroughly impressed, even at the proof-of-concept stage where Huawei looked into every possible aspect of the issues we presented and arrived at a set of solutions that left no stone unturned,” said Mr. Bernard Beltran, IT manager of Fort Bonifacio Development Corporation.

Building a safer city with Huawei

Huawei’s Safe City solution consists of IP-based cameras with Wi-Fi backhaul installed across major grids of the city and connected to a command center, complete with video analytics.

Huawei helped BGC replace old analog and low-definition cameras with Huawei High-Definition Intelligent IP Cameras and adopt strategic surveillance checkpoints with networked cameras in evenly distributed locations to ensure comprehensive coverage of the city, ensuring that coverage is unblocked by high-rise buildings across the city’s one-square mile. Huawei also proposed a network design to ensure images can be transmitted across varying distances, and centralized. To ensure the installed cameras could connect to the command center, without a fiber optic option due to expensive costs, Huawei used IP-based cameras with Wi-Fi backhaul. The solution also provides 24/7 intelligent security surveillance with analytics to detect crime and criminal intrusions, as well as for traffic management.

Bonifacio Global City: A watchful city today

BGC was the first Huawei Safe City project in the Philippines. The success of the project led the client to further expand the scope (phase 2) and increase the coverage from 70% to 100%. A phase 3 is also underway, which includes closed parking, office space, and major shopping areas, with video analytics for traffic management.

BGC has transformed into the safest business and residential township in the Philippines and has set the benchmark for other cities to emulate. Now, local law enforcement teams have an effective platform to help them fight and deter crime in BGC.

As a private township, BGC today stands as a model of pristine city planning and is on its way towards cementing its reputation as one of the safest cities in the Philippines.

“With help from Huawei, BGCEA now has the foundation for effectively keeping a watchful eye over the city. Our law enforcement team now has an effective toolset to help them combat crime, and I’m proud to say that anyone working, living, or visiting this city can do so with complete peace of mind,” said Mr. Medrano.