Mobility empowers officers

Communications News, Nov, 2002

Wireless data access is a "must-have" to keep communities safer. Daily, police field officers send incident reports, check license plates and access mug shots of wanted criminals. On the road, officers send and receive low-bandwidth data by wireless WAN--which provides great coverage throughout a jurisdiction, but cannot run some of the bandwidth-intensive applications needed.

Although the Oakland, CA, Police Department used a private RF network, field officers often could not access critical data resources because of this limited transfer rate.

To supplement its RF network, the IT division recommended a wireless LAN (WLAN) operating at 11 Mbps that would provide adequate throughput to support the high-bandwidth applications and data files.

The WLAN, an Internet protocol net-needed to be unified with the wireless WAN, which was not, so that applications could run over both with minimal disruption from the user's perspective. IT selected TotalRoam Ellipse software from Padcom Inc., which automatically switches between disparate wireless networks. The software resides on police officers' Litton laptops with Cisco Aironet 350 cards installed, and allows officers to roam between different networks. The technology even kept applications running as the switch to a new network took place.

Says IT division officer Inez Ramirez, "When you're running two different networks, you traditionally have to log into each one separately. We wanted our officers to be able to log in only once, and still be able to access all the information they needed."

Outside of the WLAN coverage area, the high-bandwidth data to be transferred is queued at the server or at the officer's portable communication station. Once he drives into range, WLAN capabilities automatically initiate, enabling him to begin large-file downloads. If he has to leave the WLAN service zone before a download is complete, the technology marks the point of interruption and delivers the remaining data when he returns to any of the WLAN-served areas.

TotalRoam Ellipse wirelessly automates application management functions, such as distributing and supporting software; providing application updates; rolling back or uninstalling software packages; tracking hardware and software assets; maintaining and monitoring applications; supplying missing or corrupted files; and updating versions.

"By maintaining connectivity while driving from WAN coverage into wireless hot spots, our officers work more efficiently and reduce the amount of time spent on administrative tasks," says Ramirez. "That is of huge value."

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