Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cops Pick Tropos WiFi

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 09:41:14 -0400

Cops Pick Tropos WiFi

09.17.03

SAN MATEO, Calif.

Underscoring the company's commitment to delivering ubiquitous broadband
wireless networking solutions to public safety agencies, Tropos Networks
today announced that the San Mateo, California, Police Department (SMPD)
has successfully implemented, trialedand is now using the first metro-scale, 
Wi-Fi mesh network for law enforcement. The SMPD has created a cellular 
Wi-Fi hot zone in downtown SanMateo using Tropos equipment and, for the 
first time, is making available critical applications to police officers in the
field.

"Our Wi-Fi network now allows officers to take their office mobile," said
Susan E. Manheimer, Chief of Police for the SMPD. "It extends to patrol cars
access to multiple, secure police databases that were previously restricted
to use in the police station. It also allows officers to send reports from
their cars to the station, eliminating the need to leave their assigned
beats. Because our officers now have broadband access to critical
information, they can more quickly solve crimes in our community."

Using laptops in their police cars, including the Incident Commander's
vehicle and the Mobile Command Center, SMPD officers now have, for the first
time, wireless broadband access to LAWNET, a county-wide Intranet for law
enforcement that connects officers to the Amber Alert System, the Sex
Offender Database and other databases. From anywhere in the hot zone,
officers can now download DMV records, including high resolution photos,
conduct in-field photo lineups, and perform other tasks that previously
required them to return to headquarters. In the future, officers will have
access to live video feeds of security cameras and access to the city's
Geographic Information System (GIS). As a result, officers are able to spend
more time on the beat and now have critical informational tools at their
fingertips for more effectively policing the community.

Broadband Access Critical to Public Safety Sector

According to a survey from one industry analyst firm, public safety -
including law enforcement, fire, corrections and emergency management
organizations - is expected to spend about $7 billion on information
technology in 2003. Of the $3.5 billion provided in federal funding to state
and local government first responders, about one-third was earmarked for
communications technologies.

Significant investments are being made in technologies such as in-vehicle
and hand-carried computers which need broadband connectivity to be
effective, according to Tropos Networks. The public safety sector wants to
provide the same access to data in the field as is available in headquarters
and, thereby, afford savings in manpower and time while improving overall
public safety. Technology like Tropos equipment provides the large scale
coverage that they need and greatly enhances the return on these
investments.

"Public safety organizations are looking for ubiquitous wireless broadband
access solutions to fulfill critical and growing public safety demands.
Specifically, they need to more broadly extend the reach of their data
communications capabilities to improve efficiency and productivity as well
as emergency responsiveness," said Dave Hanna, president and CEO of Tropos
Networks. "With broadband access now to its major databases and
applications, the SMPD is at the forefront of this movement."

"Public safety agencies continue to make significant investments in
in-vehicle and hand-held computers although their application capabilities
are limited by the bandwidth of traditional private and commercial radio
networks," said Brian Hudson, vice president at Thayer Consulting. "We are
excited about the SMPD deployment and are hopeful that technologies such as
Tropos metro-scale Wi-Fi can provide the high bandwidth and secure
communications we've been waiting for to provide enhanced, graphic intensive
applications to public safety personnel in a cost effective manner."

SMPD's Hot Zone Wi-Fi Network

The SMPD constructed their hot zone using 17 Wi-Fi cells from Tropos
Networks in a mesh configuration in downtown San Mateo with only two
backhaul connections at strategic locations to the city's fiber ring. With
the Tropos Wi-Fi cells, the SMPD was able to create a reliable, large scale
Wi-Fi network that would have otherwise been economically and logistically
unfeasible to do. The SMPD's accomplishment differs significantly from
attempts by some police departments to use 802.11 hot spot technology which
requires officers to drive to specific sites for wireless information access
and is too costly and impractical for implementing large coverage areas.

The SMPD said it also has plans to further expand the hot zone with the
ultimate goal of covering the city's critical crime areas so that police
officers have access to vital information anytime, anywhere within their
beats. Once complete, the SMPD also plans to allow fire, public works and
other city departments to have access with VPN sessions to the large Wi-Fi
network. In total, the SMPD will deploy nearly 40 Tropos Wi-Fi cells.

 http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=40341

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