L.A. Police Seek Bandwidth Boost From Wlan Technology
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) intends to implement wireless LANs (WLANs) at its 27 police stations over the coming months.
The WLANs will be employed to send mug shots, maps, and additional graphical information to police officers, according to Roger Ham, the LAPD’s deputy chief for communications.
As part of the WLAN project, the LAPD intends to hand out around 1,500 Pocket PC handheld computers to officers working in vehicles and on foot patrols. The handhelds will include 802.11b WLAN cards that allow them to communicate with wireless access points situated in the police stations at raw data transfer rates of up to 11 Mbps.
While the range of WLAN transmissions is restricted to around 300 feet, Ham points out that the technology will make it simpler to hand out images in real time to police officers.
He explains that he eventually hopes to create an interface between the WLAN radios constructed into the handhelds and the WAN-based Motorola radios that are currently employed in police cruisers.
That would allow officers to use the handhelds as remote units linked to the WAN while outside their cars. Ham adds that he regards WLANs as a stopgap device and notes that the LAPD requires more WAN spectrum for everyday tasks and homeland security mandates.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from Computerworld (03/24/03); Brewin, Bob.
