Case Study: Wireless Laptops, Hot Spots Take Bite Out Of Crime

Patrol officers in Syracuse, N.Y., and about 20 other law enforcement agencies in Onondaga County will likely be adding wireless laptops and municipal hot spots to their list of crime-fighting tools.

A pilot program is in place in several police cars cruising the streets of Syracuse and, if all goes well, 110 of those cars will be equipped with Panasonic ToughBooks set up to wirelessly send and receive sensitive crime-fighting information and photos.

The Syracuse Police Department, which employs 486 sworn officers and 88 civilians, serves 164,000 residents across 26 square miles. Scott Sheridan, network engineer at Naughton & Associates, a government-focused solution provider in Syracuse, said wireless technology is a cost-effective alternative for the department.

>> Emergency information such as missing-person alerts can be disseminated in minutes.

About six months ago, the police department decided to deploy a WLAN infrastructure when it moved to a new building and faced difficulty wiring the new site. At that time, the department also was looking for a way to "untether" police detectives so they could type up a suspect's statement anywhere in the precinct.

The key to extending the department's WLAN to the streets was Fortress Technologies' AirFortress wireless security products, which were layered on top of the department's Cisco Systems Layer 2 network infrastructure, according to Sheridan.

"We're hooking up the laptops now to see where we're getting good access and where the signal is not so strong," he said. "We're also working with local businesses and broadcast stations to acquire roof space to start putting up more [access points] around the city."

The new solution is a big improvement over the department's proprietary non-IP radio system, which was slow and unreliable, Sheridan said.

With the AirFortress products, hackers can't intercept network data or view internal network addresses,a big improvement over what previous wireless security products had to offer.

So far, Naughton & Associates has deployed new municipal hot spots and five strategically placed access points throughout the city, and plans for more are in the works, Sheridan said.

"The idea is to be able to have cars come within an area and submit police reports electronically during their shifts [via] the mobile client we're using," he said.

The wireless accessibility will save a tremendous amount of time filling out paperwork at the end of a shift, said Sheridan. He added that Naughton & Associates is rolling out a new field-management system to manage reporting more efficiently using the new technology.

In addition, Naughton & Associates has tailored applications so that emergency information such as missing-person or suspect-on-the-run alerts can be disseminated in minutes instead of hours.

ANATOMY OF A SOLUTION >> COMPANIES: Naughton & Associates, Syracuse, N.Y.; PlanetGov, Chantilly, Va. >> FOCUS: Naughton is a wired/wireless network solution provider with a focus on the government market. PlanetGov is a systems integrator specializing solely in the U.S. federal government market. >> PRODUCTS & SERVICES USED: Cisco Layer 2 WLAN infrastructure products, Fortress Technologies' AirFortress WLAN security products, Panasonic ToughBooks. >> LESSONS LEARNED: %95 WLAN pilot deployments in focused vertical markets lead to solid opportunities to capture additional business in those markets.

"It's really as simple as creating a PDF and publishing it," Sheridan said. "As soon as a police officer hits a hot spot, it syncs up and transmits down to the car."

Tom Flynn, director of partners and programs at PlanetGov, a Chantilly, Va., solution provider focused on the federal government and a Fortress reseller that helped with this project, said products used for the solution include the AirFortress AF 1100 Wireless Security Gateway and AirFortress Microsoft Secure Clients.

"They're putting a secure Microsoft client on each of the mobile data terminals and then tying back and going through the secure wireless gateway," Flynn said. Fortress has a leading-edge WLAN security solution and, because of its Federal Information Process Standards certification, it is one of the only wireless security solutions PlanetGov recommends to customers, he said.

While the police department is just now getting the pilot program up and running, the goal is to have other jurisdictions across the state do the same thing.

"You could turn around and replicate this solution in any city and, because it's partly funded with Department of Justice monies, the potential is unlimited," Flynn said. "Whenever a solution provider sells a pilot, they're not really in it for the pilot because it's too small; they're in it for the implementation."