LA Police Build Wireless LANs

Believing that heightened homeland security requirements demand higher-bandwidth communications systems for public safety agencies, the Los Angeles Police Department plans to install 27 wireless local area networks (WLANs) at police stations throughout the city in the next three months, according to Roger Ham, deputy chief for communications at the LAPD.

Ham says he plans to equip police cars with handheld computers from Symbol Technologies. The handheld devices will be equipped with 802.11b WLAN cards that communicate in the unlicensed 2.4-GHz band with access points installed in police stations at a raw data rate of 11 megabits per second-far faster than the 19.2-kilobits-per-second throughput in the department's 800-MHz wide area network (WAN) installed by Motorola two years ago and covering the city.

Ham said he eventually wants to develop an interface between the WLAN radio in the Symbol handheld and the Motorola radio in the police car. This will allow officers to use the handheld as a remote unit connected to the citywide system while outside their vehicles. Smaller California police departments, including the city of Glendale, have deployed similar WLAN-to-WAN systems.

Speedier Information

Mike Shlasko, director of public safety at Symbol, said his company will furnish the LAPD with 1500 Pocket PC-based rugged handheld devices to be used in cars and by motorcycle and foot-patrol officers. Shlasko called this the largest deployment of rugged handheld devices ever done by a public safety agency. Symbol will provide the LAPD with the handheld devices as a subcontractor to Vytek Wireless, under a deal finalized during the past few weeks.

Though the range of WLANs is limited--approximately 300 feet--Ham said installation at police stations will make it easy to distribute graphic images such as mug shots and maps to officers in real time. Currently, mug shots are distributed on paper at the roll call for each shift, Ham said.

The WLAN system could also provide a fast way to distribute photos of lost children as part of so-called Amber Alerts.

Cheap Bandwidth

Will Strauss, an analyst at Forward Concepts, called Ham's plan "a cheap way to get bandwidth" that would allow LAPD units to periodically pick up high-bandwidth data as they pass by police stations equipped with WLAN systems.

Ham said that he views WLANs as a stopgap measure and that police departments around the country need additional WAN spectrum for both routine duties and homeland security requirements. For example, the LAPD now handles security at Los Angeles International Airport. Ham said the department could use additional WAN bandwidth to transmit information from facial recognition systems.

Police departments will eventually be able to tap into wideband services in the 700-MHz band currently used by television stations as those stations migrate from that band to digital TV. But the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has given stations until 2006 to vacate the 700-MHz band, which Ham said is too long to wait considering the current security climate. He said large police departments would eventually need to buy wideband WAN service from commercial cellular carriers.