How do I calculate PoE budget for a camera deployment?
Sum the peak wattage of every camera (not nameplate — check spec sheet for "PoE class" or "max consumption"). Add 15-20% headroom for inrush during cold-start. The result is your required simultaneous-peak PoE budget. A 24-port PoE+ switch advertised at 370W can only run about 18 outdoor cameras with heaters + IR — see PoE budget planning.
What's the maximum Ethernet cable run for an IP camera?
100 meters (328 feet) per TIA-568 — total distance from switch port to camera port. That includes in-rack patch cords, in-wall cabling, faceplate jack, and camera jumper. For longer runs, use fiber with a media converter or a long-reach PoE extender. Going past 328ft on copper causes intermittent packet loss that looks like camera problems.
Do I need managed or unmanaged PoE switches?
For more than 8 cameras or any mixed-use network (cameras sharing infrastructure with office traffic), specify managed. VLAN segmentation isolates camera traffic for security and performance; QoS ensures video gets bandwidth priority; SNMP monitoring surfaces failures before users call. Unmanaged switches are acceptable only for small standalone deployments.
What UPS runtime should I plan for an NVR + switch?
15-30 minutes of runtime at actual load is typical — enough to ride through brief outages or allow graceful shutdown before battery exhaustion. For sites with generator transfer, 5-10 minutes is sufficient. Size UPS wattage for actual connected load + 20%, and use the vendor's runtime-at-load curve (runtime is non-linear). Double-conversion UPS for sensitive or dirty-power sites.
How far can I extend PoE past 328 feet?
Ethernet-over-Coax extenders (NVT Phybridge CHARIoT, Altronix eBridge) push Ethernet + PoE to 1,500+ feet over existing RG59/RG6 coax — ideal for analog-to-IP retrofits. UTP-based extenders reach 2,000-4,000 feet on Cat cable at reduced bandwidth (typically 100 Mbps). For new runs over 328ft, fiber + PoE switch at the camera end is usually cleaner architecture.
Should I put cameras on a separate VLAN?
Yes — always. A dedicated camera VLAN isolates camera traffic from office network for security (blocks camera-to-camera lateral movement if one is compromised), performance (cameras don't contend with office bandwidth), and troubleshooting (camera traffic is cleanly separated for packet capture). Requires managed switches; takes 10 minutes to configure on Ubiquiti UniFi, Cisco Catalyst, or any enterprise switch.