"Effective communications in our public-safety agencies is of paramount importance to ensuring a safe community," said Bill Marion, information services director for the city of Milpitas. "Secure in-field access to critical information is a key element of that effectiveness. The Tropos solution allowed us to quickly deploy the broadband wireless network that makes this access possible, with the lowest total cost of ownership for the city. The sophisticated management and scalability features in the Tropos release 3 make this the ideal product for our city's needs."
In this community of over 63,000 residents, the Police Department will be the anchor tenant of the metro-scale WiFi network. Using WiFi-enabled data terminals installed in each of the more than 30 patrol vehicles in the city's motor pool, officers will have access to broadband applications previously unavailable over the low bandwidth CDPD connections purchased by the city. Officers now have fully-secure in-field access to IP-based applications such as the Cal Photo Database, California Gang Database, and DMV records and photos, as well as computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and records management systems (RMS). Additionally, Milpitas Police uses the Tropos network to link and access a network of video cameras monitoring high-traffic areas throughout the city; officers can now assess transportation snarls and traffic incidents from any patrol vehicle within the Wi-Fi coverage area, improving the effectiveness of community policing. In the near future, the Milpitas Fire Department will use the same broadband WiFi network to access hazardous materials databases, incident video and mobile dispatch applications. Other municipal workers, such as building inspectors, traffic engineers and code-enforcement officers, are expected to utilize the network as well.
The infrastructure of the Milpitas network is made up of Tropos 5110 WiFi cells, an outdoor-optimized and ruggedized node based on the 802.11 standard. The Tropos 5110 quickly and economically uses the intelligent Tropos Predictive Wireless Routing Protocol (PWRP) to provide pervasive coverage over metro areas. The Tropos PWRP routes traffic wirelessly, eliminating up to 95 percent of the wired backhaul associated with traditional access-point solutions. Tropos WiFi cells form a wireless mesh, dynamically routing traffic along the highest throughput path to a wired gateway. This intelligent routing negates effects of radio frequency (RF) interference, wired backhaul failure and node failure. PWRP also scales to thousands of nodes with the lowest routing overhead in the industry.
