Think Public Safety

Has it ever been more vital for our Police Officers to be more aware? Author: Tunde Williams

Created Jan 16 2015, 6:00 AM by Paul Jeffs

Recent events in France have highlighted the need to keep our Police officers safe, so that they, in turn, can keep our citizens and our cities safe. Public Safety organisations have always needed reliable 'mission critical' voice communications but now data, and the applications that use it are becoming mission critical too.

Why? Public Safety professionals are asking for more ways to provide mission critical intelligence to officers in the field as well as share intelligence from the field. They are asking for services and solutions that not just help them prevent events from happening but also act fast and in the right way when they occur. They know in order to achieve that they require a mission critical network, which in turn may need dedicated radio spectrum to run them too. This in itself is a hot topic too. How hot? Read the article published this week in the German newspaper BILD featuring a letter written to the German government by Rainer Wendt, the head of the German Police Union (DPoIG). This letter calls for a halt to the planned auction of the full mobile broadband spectrum in Germany so that parts of the spectrum can be retained for Public Safety users to securely share high-quality videos, high-resolution photography, maps and voice recordings.

The call to action from the German Police Union highlights the need for dedicated, purpose-built next generation solutions for public safety, which are networks, applications, services and devices. How can new mission critical devices help? Take our LEX 755 Mission Critical Handheld for example. With this, a police officer has a virtual partner at his side, helping him monitor the environment, gather information and be more aware. When engaged in an incident response or alerted to a threat, the device springs to action, bringing focus to the most relevant, possibly life-saving information.

The LEX755 is the first mission critical device that can use 4G LTE as well as 3G cellular networks. As it supports both public and private networks it is the ideal choice for trialling the use of data in an agency or providing to key officers on the street.

IT managers and field officers no longer need to think about what information should be made available in the field since all the Police department’s information can be brought to the field, on demand. Tactical maps, mug shots and live video from an incident in progress can be sent to the nearby street corner at the same time it reaches the command centre.

To get an idea of how this will change Police Officer's lives, take a look at this video animation showing the day in the life of a Police Officer with the LEX755.