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Monroe County Sheriff's Office Moves to New Network System

Roaming technology provides smooth transition to GPRS.

KEY WEST, Fla. -- The Monroe County, Fla., Sheriff's Officefaced a problem in transitioning to its new network system.

"When we made the transition using our wireless CDPD [cellular digital packet data] network to the wireless GPRS [general packet radio service] network, we faced the challenge of having to maintain static IP addresses in an environment that no longer supported static IP," said Michael Grattan, information services system administrator for Monroe County. "Our key application was crashing constantly, both when the IP address changed and when officers roamed through a dead spot in the network coverage.

The sheriff's office selected NetMotion Mobility software to solve wireless network connectivity problems and ensure data security on the department's wide-area data network.

Monroe County is also required by state and federal government regulations to encrypt all of the law enforcement data sent over a public network. Using the 128-bit AES encryption included with the software allows the county to satisfy this requirement.

The Sheriff's Office provides law enforcement service to all of the Florida Keys, which includes approximately 112 miles of islands branching off the southern tip of Florida. The office employs 567 people. Of these, 197 are road patrol officers and detectives, 162 are corrections officers, 167 serve as support staff members, and 41 people are employed by the HIDTA Group (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area), which is managed by the sheriff's office.
Miriam Jones is a former chief copy editor of Government Technology, Governing, Public CIO and Emergency Management magazines.