Boston cops get wireless broadband links

When the Boston Police Department sought added security measures during the July 26-29 Democratic National Convention, it turned to Community WISP, Inc., a wireless Internet service and network provider in the greater Boston area.

Community WISP previously set up a wireless security network along the parade route in downtown Boston in February when the New England Patriots were honored for winning the SuperBowl. Security for the national political convention was more demanding and involved more agencies and departments.

Robert Zakarian, president of Community WISP, welcomed the challenge and worked with the local police department to install video surveillance cameras on top of 10 downtown office buildings. The pan-zoom cameras operated from a central command center. Real-time video was sent to the command center via Motorola’s Canopy wireless broadband radios.

Separately, during the Democratic National Convention, the Massachusetts Highway Department enlisted Community WISP to wirelessly connect nine video cameras already installed along the Southeastern Expressway in Boston to monitor traffic in a convertible high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane.

“The system worked very well,” said Christopher Costello, systems project manager with Edwards and Kelcey, the MassHighway subcontractor responsible for the network. “We had nine existing cameras on T1 lines and MassHighway was in the process of relocating video feed from one facility to another and we needed to get it done in the last minute. Community WISP was able to convert all nine camera sites to wireless and to the new location.”

In a third Canopy wireless broadband deployment centered around the Democratic National Convention, Community WISP was contracted by a local television news outlet to provide live video feeds from four traffic bottleneck locations. News stations that normally had traffic reporters providing live traffic information from helicopters were grounded because of the no-fly restrictions placed over the greater Boston area during the convention.

“What is evidenced by these successful deployments is that wireless broadband continues to make in-roads in a number of areas, including security operations, surveillance, voice over Internet protocol and video applications.

Community WISP and companies like it are able to compete with traditional wired alternatives in providing permanent or temporary secure, reliable Internet connectivity and data services,” said Tom Hulsebosch, senior director of sales and marketing for Motorola’s Canopy Wireless Broadband group.

Motorola’s Canopy wireless broadband is an always-on, high-speed broadband for connectivity to private networks, such as governments or enterprises and to Internet service providers and carriers.

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