John Oliver recently pilloried the 911 system for its inaccuracy and unreliability in remote areas on his HBO show Last Week Tonight. The point was not to poke fun at dispatchers or first responders, but to show how out-of-date technology is failing them in helping people. The 911 problems are not the only technical challenges facing emergency personnel, and a new product on the road in Massachusetts is helping with yet another.
Sierra Wireless recently announced availability of its AirLink MP70 LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) vehicle router for mission critical applications in public safety, transit and field services. It is designed to serve as a purpose-built, high-performance vehicle networking solution that enables multiple high-bandwidth applications to work simultaneously, more than 10 times faster and four times further from the vehicle than ever before. The company says it can also provide IT departments with the ability to manage fleet and mobile assets in the cloud or an enterprise data center.
“First responders and field services teams need access to uncompromised connectivity at all times, and that’s central to all of our LTE networking solutions,” said Jason Krause, SVP and GM, Enterprise Solutions, Sierra Wireless. “Using the MP70, mobile workers can communicate seamlessly from in and around their vehicle, as if they were in an office. This allows them to perform critical duties onsite more efficiently, and ultimately respond more quickly and effectively in the field.”
For example, a typical law enforcement vehicle hosts a laptop for dispatch and records management, an electronic citation system, live digital video surveillance, body-worn cameras and automated license plate recognition (ALPR) systems. With the MP70, all of these systems connect to a high-speed vehicle area network, with both gigabit Ethernet and 802.11ac Wi-Fi supported, and share a secure LTE-A cellular connection that enables the dispatcher to access all of the systems in real time.
“We trialed the MP70 router to connect our in-vehicle computers and provide a Wi-Fi hotspot for our team to access critical database records onsite in real time during emergencies,” said Greg Katz, Lieutenant, Billerica, MA Police. “Right out of the box, we were impressed by the MP70’s top-notch, ruggedized form factor—with hardened aluminum casing, it’s clearly designed for turbulent vehicle environments. We are also very impressed with its reliable LTE connectivity and, because it offers 4-port Gigabit Ethernet, we will be able to support more in-vehicle equipment, such as video cameras and ALPR, bringing the full functionality of our office network to our patrol officers.”
The MP70 has an integrated events engine, built-in vehicle I/O and support for AirLink Vehicle Telemetry to enable advanced awareness and instant insight into vehicle diagnostics, connected mobile assets, fleet operations and the workforce. The MP70 also provides GNSS and inertial navigation (activated in an upcoming software release), enabling superior vehicle location accuracy, even when out of satellite coverage.
Lights and sirens, roll out.
Edited by
Ken Briodagh