FirstSpot (FAQ), is a Windows-based WLAN Access Server designed to track and secure a public Wi-Fi network in a centralized way. Based on captive portal technology, FirstSpot allows users to login only utilizing a web browser.
Other, centrally managed Community LAN software include Sputnik and the popular Community LAN software NoCat which operates fairly autonomously on individual nodes.
FirstSpot Features:
- Browser-based login, no extra client required
- Exception free web site support (can handle wildcard sub-domain name format. e.g. *.yahoo.com)
- Browser-based Administration
- Efficient idle timeout mechanism
- Instant keyword support (i.e. type “logout” in browser to bring up logout windows)
- Time-limited pre-paid account support
- Usage tracking
- Backend integration with ODBC
- work with Ethernet based network as well as WLAN
- Support MTU (Multi-Tenant Units) environment
- PocketPC Support * *planned
It works with a PC and 2 network cards, Windows 2000, SQL Server 2000 or other ODBC compliant Data Source. FirstSpot provides an unlimited user license but is coy on pricing. No independent reviews (yet).
Another community LAN management system was announced by Wificom Technologies, which is teaming with Colubris Networks to deliver integrated public wireless LAN solutions to service providers worldwide.
Wificom’s SAB Server integrates service creation, billing, rating, roaming, customer care, reporting, device independent content delivery as well as value-added location-based services. With the joint solution, service providers will centrally manage hotspot services provided through Colubris Networks access devices.
City-wide communications management packages can include Integrated Justice System Projects and first-responder enhancements:
- Microsoft’s Regional Automated Information Network , allows three local law enforcement agencies in Washington state to share records.
The new pilot, which started last November, combines Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 in a desktop portal and Extensible Markup Language-based query engine that lets 17 jurisdictions electronically search each other’s records management systems.
- The Salem Unified Network (SUN) System is a regional criminal justice information database for the Salem Police Department. The Regional Automated Information Network (RAIN) System is a criminal justice information database of combined agencies.
- Nomadix and Portland, Oregon-based, Eleven Wireless are working together to further integrate Eleven’s Wi-Fi operations platform, called ElevenOS, with Nomadix Gateway solutions, providing network operators with authentication, billing/payment, account management and simplified network installation.
- IBM’s new WebSphere Everyplace Connection Manager, provides a bar higher for secure, seamless roaming across multiple types of wireless and wired networks. It achieves the highest level of FIPS security certification.
Mobile employees can use a laptop or a PDA to move from location to location, enjoying secure, high speed access to information across Wi-Fi, cellular, wireless data telecommunications, iDEN, CDMA, and PWLAN hot spots, without interrupting web connections or losing an existing session. The software creates a mobile Virtual Private Network, (VPN) for both Internet Protocol (IP) networks and non-IP or private packet radio networks, that protects sensitive enterprise data by encrypting data, optimizing performance and reducing transmission costs.
IBM and a partnership of public safety and transportation agencies are building the Capital Wireless Integrated Network (CapWIN) for the Washington D.C. region. The first interoperable wireless system to span multi-state government jurisdictions, the network will enable officials from more than 40 local, state, and federal agencies to communicate with each other in real time.
Is your county government smart enough to provide interoperable voice and data using Wi-Fi networking? Maybe not.
Mobile data services will go down in an emergency. That’s because most depend on GPRS or CDPD (which itself is going away). Homeland security bucks, instead, will be spent on $2,500 radios.
It’s probably a mistake. Cities pay millions of dollars every year to cellular operators for voice and data communications. But police-type radios are less risky, politically, than installing a Wi-Fi infrastructure. Managers would get too much flack if they experimented with Wi-Fi. It IS a tough situation for managers.
But safety has nothing to do with it.
