Alcatel-Lucent and LGS, Alcatel-Lucent’s government subsidiary, today announced they were awarded the Regional Wireless Broadband Network (RWBN) equipment contract by the District of Columbia as part of the National Capital Region Interoperability Program (NCRIP).
The five-year, $110 million contract will provide cellular’s EVDO system on the 700 MHz public service frequency. The first phase of the project will involve the installation of a broadband network in multiple National Capital Region jurisdictions.
The network serves the National Capital Region’s 19 municipal, district, state and federal jurisdictions covering more than 4.2 million people living in the region.
Alcatel-Lucent claim it will be the nation’s first interoperable, 700-MHz-based, broadband network. Of course islands of incompatibility are bound to spring up with competiting commercial Flarion-based and Mobile WiMAX approaches on the 700 MHz band.
LGS will work with its parent Alcatel-Lucent to deploy the CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision A (Rev. A) technology being rolled-out nationally by commercial wireless carriers. EV-DO Rev. A enables users to receive data at speeds of up to 3.1 Megabits per second (Mbps) and send data (reverse link) at speeds of up to 1.8 Mbps. These data speeds reduce data latency and enable real-time video and other multimedia services.
LGS teamed with AnyData a leading manufacturer of CDMA data modules and devices to provide laptop and handheld devices, and Qualcomm, who provided the reference design for 700 MHz capable CDMA chip sets.
Alcatel-Lucent recently announced a complete suite of CDMA products for the 700 MHz spectrum optimized for public safety applications in a press release issued on February 27, 2007.
Washington DC’s Capital Wireless Integrated Network (CapWIN, FAQ) was the first multi-state transportation and public safety integrated wireless network in the United States (pdf). It is designed to provide firefighters, police, transportation officials and other authorized emergency personnel with wireless access to multiple government data sources during critical incidents (video).
The CapWIN network let law enforcement agencies do three things: communicate with one another over a secure instant messaging network; search multiple databases; and permit better coordination between different agencies or officers responding to an emergency. The instant message application uses Jabber, while Informant Software provides the database access system.
[...] 9/11, both NYC and the DC area have solved their “interoperability” problems. Now (or soon) their public safety [...]
Left by D stands for slightly desperate | Susan Crawford blog on May 15th, 2008