"Believing that heightened homeland security requirements demand higher-bandwidth communications systems for public safety agencies, the Los Angeles Police Department plans to install 27 wireless local area networks (WLANs) at police stations throughout the city in the next three months, according to Roger Ham, deputy chief for communications at the LAPD.
Ham says he plans to equip police cars with handheld computers from Symbol Technologies. The handheld devices will be equipped with 802.11b WLAN cards that communicate in the unlicensed 2.4-GHz band with access points installed in police stations at a raw data rate of 11 megabits per second-far faster than the 19.2-kilobits-per-second throughput in the department's 800-MHz wide area network (WAN) installed by Motorola two years ago and covering the city.
Ham said he eventually wants to develop an interface between the WLAN radio in the Symbol handheld and the Motorola radio in the police car. This will allow officers to use the handheld as a remote unit connected to the citywide system while outside their vehicles. Smaller California police departments, including the city of Glendale, have deployed similar WLAN-to-WAN systems."
