The network behind the stream, the cameras, the kids check-in and the guest WiFi has to be there at 9:55 — whether or not the volunteer who understands it is. CDM builds church networks and production AV for congregations across West Georgia.
What actually breaks
Church tech does not fail gradually. It fails at 9:55, in front of everyone, on the one morning the person who knows how to fix it is out of town.
A sanctuary is the hardest WiFi environment most buildings will ever have: everyone arrives at once, in one room, and half of them join the network without being asked to.
Streaming is the one thing in the building with a hard deadline and no second chance. It needs its own lane, guaranteed bandwidth, and something to fall back on when the ISP picks Sunday to fail.
The volunteer who set it up moved. The one who knew the password graduated. Whatever we build has to still be operable by whoever shows up next, without a phone call.
What we build
The network, the cameras, the door access and the production AV all designed together — so nobody gets to point at somebody else when the stream drops.
Book a walkthroughCoverage designed against the actual footprint — sanctuary, lobby, classrooms, offices, fellowship hall, and the parking lot where the youth group actually is. Density matters more than raw signal in a full room.
The upload path treated as production infrastructure: prioritized traffic, a wired run to the booth, and 5G cellular failover that takes over automatically instead of waiting for someone to notice.
Guest WiFi that cannot see the check-in computers. Thermostats and smart devices that cannot see anything. Kids check-in on its own network, because that data deserves it.
UniFi Protect coverage for entrances, hallways, the nursery corridor and the parking lot, recorded on site with no monthly subscription. UniFi Access for keycard, mobile and keypad entry so keys stop circulating.
Production AV and DMX lighting control designed onto the same network as everything else, so the stream, the sound and the lights are not three unrelated systems that only argue on Sunday.
Remote monitoring, firmware and security updates, and scheduled health checks during the week — so the failure gets found on a Tuesday instead of during the announcements.
Planned before purchased
Coverage gets modeled against the seating, the platform and the booth — not guessed at from the middle of the sanctuary on a Tuesday afternoon when nobody is in it.
Access points placed for a seated, full room, with camera positions and a wired path back from the stream booth.
The parts that get forgotten — classrooms, fellowship hall, offices, the pavilion and the parking lot.
One place where all of it lives, laid out so a volunteer can be talked through it over the phone.
What you keep
A church that cannot operate its own building is one resignation away from a crisis. Documentation is not paperwork here — it is continuity.
Every port and patch marked at both ends, so the next volunteer can trace a problem without unplugging things to see what goes dark.
What is plugged into what, which network it lives on, and what stops working if a given piece fails.
The church owns the gear and the admin accounts. Handed over in writing — not held by whoever installed it.
The four things to check before a service, in order, written for somebody who is not technical and is already running late.
The network, cabling, WiFi, cameras, door access, production audio, video and lighting control — and the monitoring that keeps all of it standing between Sundays.
Running your service. We will train whoever does, and we will pick up the phone during the week — but the volunteer at the board on Sunday is yours, not ours.
Common questions
Usually by a pastor, an administrator and whoever has been keeping the stream running on a Sunday for free.
There is no single number, and anybody who gives you one over the phone is guessing at the parts that decide it. What a stream needs depends on the resolution and frame rate you send, how much motion is in the shot, how the encoder is configured, whether you push to more than one platform at once, and what else in the building is using the same line while the service is running. The speed the internet company advertises is also not the speed you have at 10:30 on a Sunday. What matters more than the figure is that the upload is treated as production infrastructure: a wired path to the booth, streaming traffic prioritized over everything else on the line, and 5G cellular failover behind it so a dropped connection does not end the broadcast. We measure what the building actually has during the assessment and design against that number, not the advertised one.
That is the point of building it this way. The rack is labeled at both ends, the network map is written down, the admin credentials belong to the church, and the handover includes a short runbook: the four things to check before a service, in order, written for somebody who is not technical and is already running late. Nothing important is left depending on one person remembering how it was set up. Remote monitoring runs during the week so most faults surface on a Tuesday rather than during the announcements, and we are on the phone when something needs a second pair of eyes.
They go on separate networks running on the same equipment, so it is a design decision rather than a second set of hardware. Guests get a network that reaches the internet and nothing else in the building — it cannot see the check-in computers, the office machines, the cameras or each other. Kids check-in gets its own network because of what it holds. Thermostats, door controllers and anything else with a chip in it get one where they can be reached only by the people who need them. Everyone in the building still sees one guest network name and never has to know the rest of it is there.
No, and most of the church work we do is staged, because most churches fund it in pieces. Cable is the part worth doing first and doing properly, since it is the most disruptive to add later and everything else rides on it. After that the order usually runs: the gateway and switching, then coverage in the rooms that are failing now, then cameras and door access, then production. We will tell you which pieces have to be done together to work at all, and which can wait a year without wasting what you spend today.
Yes, and it is how we prefer to work. Assessments, cable pulls, rack building and configuration happen on weekdays, and anything that has to take the network down is scheduled with whoever runs the building. Where a cutover cannot be finished in a single visit, the old path stays up until the new one is tested and carrying traffic. The intent is that the first Sunday anyone notices the work is the one where nothing goes wrong.
Where we work
Church work is a relationship, not a transaction. It helps to be a short drive away when something needs a second visit.
No cost, no obligation
We walk the building on a weekday, look at what is actually installed, and tell you plainly what will hold up on Sunday and what will not. You get the findings whether or not you hire us — bring them to your finance committee either way.
Typical response — same business day
