San Diego County Sheriff Dept. Mobile Broadband

A posting of mine to the Dewayne-Net mailing list (http://wireless.com/Dewayne-Net):

San Diego County Sheriff's Department uses a 2.4 GHz license-exempt system (Alvarion's proprietary Frequency Hopping, NOT 802.11b/Wi-Fi) to provide Broadband IntRAnet services to each of their ~650 patrol vehicles.

They used license-exempt because:

1. They badly needed broadband connectivity to work more efficiently; they were using CDPD and that's about to go away, and the wireless telephony data services (2.5G) offered as a replacement for CDPD aren't cost-effective
2. Preference was given to an "owned" system rather than a service because of ongoing cost
3. It wasn't possible to implement such a system using available licensed spectrum
4. Because it's off-the-shelf broadband wireless equipment, it was reasonably affordable and easy to install
5. It's field-proven to work reliably and securely
   

From all accounts, it's working well.

That's just ONE, admittedly high-profile successful public safety use of license-exempt spectrum and systems; there are many others.

It's very, very hard to get it through to most technologists that HIGHLY effective use of license-exempt spectrum for purposes such as public safety isn't just a "probably will happen" concept... it's HERE... NOW!!! Being DONE! Being used VERY effectively.

If you'd like to learn more directly, Alvarion is one of the most active equipment vendors in public safety use of license-exempt spectrum - www.alvarion.com (corporate site in Israel), www.alvarion-usa.com (US site).

It's about to get more active - Motorola recently announced that they'll be extending their Canopy product line to provide mobility, and Motorola will be marketing Canopy for public safety use.

Steve Stroh

Copyright © 2003-2004 by Steve Stroh. This article originally appeared on my second Broadband Wireless Internet Access Weblog hosted on www.strohpub.com/weblog.