ITU-T Recommendations

Recommendation ITU-T K.142 provides a set of practical procedures related to lightning protection, earthing and bonding of a video surveillance system (VSS).

The main objective of Recommendation ITU-T K.142 is to reduce the risk of damage to VSSs due to lightning strikes, which will improve the safety and reliability of the VSS itself and its related equipment. Recommendation ITU-T K.142 also provides the configuration and rating of protection modules required to protect VSSs against lightning surges.

Usually VSSs can be used to remotely capture multimedia, e.g., audio, video, image and alarm signals and present them to the end user in a user-friendly manner, based on a managed broadband network with ensured quality, security and reliability.

According to the type of signal transmitted, VSSs can be divided into three kinds: analogue; hybrid digital-analogue; and full digital (also called Internet Protocol (IP) based). Because IP-based VSSs are more complicated for lightning protection, they lie outside the scope of Recommendation ITU-T K.142, see Recommendation ITU-T K.45.

Annex A presents a VSS classification, while Appendix I presents an overview of practical procedures of earthing for VSS front-end equipment.

Related technical requirements have been adopted in many surveillance products, effectively improved the lightning protection ability and usage of related products, ensuring that networks operate normally.