The Gateway To Public Safety's Long Term Evolution

By Bob Ashenbrenner, Xplore Technologies

Yes, there’s literally public safety in numbers. LTE’s growing numbers worldwide that is. A few weeks ago, Heavy Reading’s 4G/LTE analyst Tim Kridel wrote a very compelling article that got lots right. He spoke of GSMA’s prediction that, by 2020, 63% of the world's population will be covered by LTE, and more than 30% of connections will use the technology.

Yet, as a public safety communications expert, I honestly believe those usage numbers will and should be much higher among first responders.

Think about it: Their jobs aren’t what they used to be and they need information now. Each officer needs quick access to a wireless network to support their plethora of in-vehicle devices, such as dispatching and tracking technologies, electronic ID and license plate recognition systems, electronic ticketing systems, etc. And all of those, as well as many other mobile technologies, need to work whether in the city or on a rural road 100 miles outside town.We believe that’s why, as Sierra Wireless’ public safety folks recently pointed out as well, introducing mobile gateways to the in-vehicle tech setup is the key to delivering always-on connectivity to these many devices across many (really all) working environments. First responders demand significant amounts of bandwidth for the mobile applications they use to do their jobs in the office, field and vehicle. Mobile gateways are one of the best ways to deliver these significant levels of bandwidth consistently and reliably, regardless of which wireless WAN (WWAN) will be tapped and especially when the connection will be shared by all those devices.

Please log in or register below to read the full article.