Police Getting 21st Century Technology

The Chattanooga City Council is taking action tonight to get more than $600,000 in federal grants to help bring the police department up to the 21st century.

The money is going to help officer's laptop computers work like they should, not like they have for the last eight years which is very, very slowly.

It was a federal grant worth millions of dollars that helped put laptops in Chattanooga officer's hands in 2001. Since then officers have complained about how slow they are or how they don't seem to work sometimes.

The problem is the connection but that's about to change.

When the federally-funded laptops were installed in city police cars through the years the connection between them and the vital data bases officers need left a lot to be desired. The connection is through the police department's 800 megahertz radio system, resulting in data speeds less than half of what you would get with slow dial-up Internet service because of technical limitations.

Chattanooga Police Assistant Chief Mike Williams said "it's made the software and our access to a lot of the information sources that we have now almost impossible with the old technology."

Millions of dollars and years of frustration later relief is on the way. Another federal grant will pay for broadband-speed connections through local cell phone service providers.

The Hamilton County Sheriff's Department went to a cellular aircard network when they implemented laptop computers in the field about a year ago. Aircards are thin, cellphone-like transmitters that slide into laptops.

Ron Bernard, Information Systems Manager for the Sheriff's Department, said "we're using cellular aircards connecting through cell towers to get back to data stores, data bases."

With broadband speeds officers can access jail and court records, mugshots and other data sources that can alert them to people who are wanted or are dangerous.

"It's been working very well, it's reliable," Bernard said.

A broadband connection also means connection with security cameras being installed downtown and on the Waterfront. Chief Williams said that's possible because connection speeds will be 20-times faster than what's now being used.

The aircards and service will cost more than $600,000 for the next three years. Assistant Chief Williams said after that the cost of aircard service will be written into future police budgets.

He said another benefit is officers will be able to use their higher powered radios mounted in patrol cars when their portable radios can't get out of weak radio zones because the mobile radios won't be needed to stay connected to the slow data links.