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That's what the young thief probably thought for about four to six minutes—right up until an officer that didn't even see the event transpire showed up and brought him in to the station.

Two years ago, Ripon, Calif., became the first municipality in the state to implement a citywide wireless mesh network that provides broadband access to government employees, with realtime push capabilities from applications on the system. Lockheed Martin developed the solution, using outdoor Mesh 2.4-GigaHertz radios from Motorola, wireless backhaul from Trango Broadband, and routing, switching and firewall protection from Cisco. Microsoft equips mobile units with the operating system and provides authentication to the police network, and NetMotion Wireless' mobile technology enables roaming between the outdoor mesh and AT&T commercial networks. First-response vehicles access the network through MobileVision video cameras with DVR and auto-upload capabilities from L3 Communications, and more than 50 Sony zoom cameras provide realtime strategic surveillance at sites throughout the city—from parks to well sites, major roadways and school campuses.

"We looked at what we wanted to do especially after 9/11, to ensure we are the keepers of our system," says Richard Bull, Ripon's chief of police. With no infrastructure in place to support citywide coverage, wireless was the only option. Now, the distributed backhaul architecture supports 100 Megabits of total aggregated bandwidth on the backbone that can be attributed anywhere.

"Any information we need to get in the field, we can push from the system," Bull says. "We use it for a variety of things—from running data information from patrol cars, to setting up a mobile command post running live streaming video back to the department. It's been rock solid."

In the case of the park thief, the victim placed a call to 9-1-1, where dispatchers immediately accessed streaming video from a zoom camera at the location. The person was identified exiting the scene, a nearby police officer alerted, and both thief and skateboard recovered.

Next: Beyond Mobile Access Beyond Mobile Access
Ripon, Calif., may be ahead of the curve in terms of implementation, but it's not alone. According to a study conducted by CDW Government and the Center for Digital Government that looked at investments in mobility at the state and local levels, Utah and Wisconsin actually lead the way in terms of investment in wireless devices, which includes voice and data services provided by wireless carriers, as well as wireless handheld computers.

As examples of where those IT investments are going, the Utah Highway Patrol implemented a mobile data technology solution in 2006, which allows troopers to look up driver license and vehicle information, fill out critical reports and track other troopers through an interactive mapping program, all from in-vehicle notebooks. And in Wisconsin's Eau Claire County, school officials, law enforcement and courts officers, human services case workers, prosecuting attorneys and public defenders can access a centralized Web-based system to track youth with juvenile records; the county uploaded the programs onto wireless notebooks on patrol cars and PDAs for anytime, anywhere access.

Key to the latest investments in IT for first response is seamless realtime communications with systems and devices on the network. Wireless access alone is no longer enough.

"[First responders need] reliable mobile data," says Nelson Santos, vice president of Lombard, Ill.-based Scientel Wireless. "Being able to access information on the way to the scene, for example, allows for the decision-making process to begin [immediately]. And video is the killer application—putting intelligence into the video and making it available as a tool. This puts a great [pressure] on the network to provide mobile access."

First and foremost, the network has to be reliable. Motorola recently expanded its Motomesh Duo radio meshed Wi-Fi product, currently available in 2.4/5.8-GigaHertz configurations, to include a 4.9-GigaHertz model as well as a 5.4-GigaHertz model for international customers. Additional features will also be incorporated, including adaptable Internet gateways, Web-based management tools and dual-meshing capabilities. So, if a public-safety agency loses backhaul to a gateway node, the system adapts and routes those messages to a different node, rather than leaving a hole in the network. At the same time, two single-radio mesh devices allow parallel networks—2.4-GigaHertz/4.9-GigaHertz—to run separately from a single piece of hardware with one management system. And a dual-band client access card delivers the capabilities of private, dedicated 4.9-GigaHertz spectrum and designated 2.4-GigaHertz spectrum for public access.

"The driver [to implement public Wi-Fi networks] in the past was public access; the questions were more often, 'How many will want to pay for wireless access to Internet?' or, 'How can we bridge the digital divide and provide access to remote locations?'" says Chip Yager, director of operations for Motorola's Mesh Networks Group. "But now, the municipalities are looking at these capabilities in terms of a wireless backbone. They want to know how to make this work for public safety, utilities and public services, [and] citizen services. They may also get the public access benefits, but first they want the tangible ROI."

With a reliable network backbone in place, first responders seek two other capabilities: access to back-office systems and custom information to support the requirements of the job, both streamed to applications on the mobile device. With many of those requirements involving data-intensive applications, such as geospatial mapping capabilities, adjustments have to be made on the back end. Citrix, for one, delivers data through a client-server model, where data is compressed and transmitted as pixels that don't eat up bandwidth, or through a Web application that streams data, or by providing direct access to the desktop. Combined with its NetScaler accelerator, the application compresses and sends data expeditiously to the device five to 10 times faster than an ordinary network exchange.

"Everything—including computation—happens on the server," says Bert Wakeley, director of State and Local Government for Citrix. "It can grind and crunch data and send pictures in seconds, with nothing to download. We look at this as an architectural solution based on the idea of getting the applications to the user as fast as possible."

Given that business software is vendor-agnostic, municipalities can access and share applications, regardless of the hardware they run on. In San Francisco, the police department was at a standstill for deploying new applications because of a legacy infrastructure. At the same time, first responders had mandatory requirements to secure data—making wireless access a challenging proposition. Concord, Calif.-based Entisys Solutions implemented a Citrix Access Infrastructure solution based on the Citrix Presentation Server. The police department was able to build a completely secure centralized solution that provided access to information and resources for all users in multiple locations and in the field, without any forklift upgrade, says Mike Strohl, president of Entisys. If updates need to be made, they're made to all users in realtime; and because the solution is centralized, no critical data is kept on mobile devices.

"The concept of 'build it and they will come' is changing to 'build it and they all will have access,'" Strohl says. "Immediacy of access to information, security and productivity; the solutions we are building focus on all of these attributes."

Regardless of whether devices store data, they still play an integral role in first-response communications. And just as applications on the back end help enable the network, vertical applications on mobile devices get custom information delivered in the field quickly. Dozens of these applications exist. Both Advanced Technology Systems and Info-Cop, for example, offer software for access to criminal justice and motor vehicle databases. Wallace Wireless developed a solution that enables realtime look-up and retrieval of all hazardous-materials response information, and even allows users to look up information about any railcar in North America by entering a code on the side of the car. They find out who owns the railcar, what chemicals it contains, and how to respond to any spill.

"These companies essentially write a rich client front end that has all of the fields and features the first responder would need," says Jeff McDowell, vice president of global alliances at Research in Motion (RIM). For BlackBerrys, ISVs write a Java application that uses its Mobile Data Server to get to the back end. "You can't do push with a browser, so the best way to get data to the device is through Java," McDowell says. RIM then adds APIs for any alerts needed—a ring, or a buzz or to serve up a map. "We learned from e-mail how to be very efficient to move data bits from device to a back-end server securely and efficiently, and to push data back to the device in realtime."

But to cash in on the opportunities that exist in first response, McDowell says, solution providers have to change their focus from the device only to the full solution—front to back end.

"Generally, my ISVs sell directly to the customer," he says. "Resellers tend to just sell the handheld and air time. But what I'm looking to do is get more of the cell resellers to be agents to distribute solutions. This is not just about a cellphone. It's about handhelds that have a lot of power; a lot of security; and push capabilities that can have a big impact. Resellers have to get smart."