Sprint's WiMAX network helping Maryland police

Annapolis PD starting to hook up surveillance cameras with WiMAX

The next time David Simon writes a show about cops, he may have to call it "The Wireless."

Is Sprint finally rebounding?

That's because the police department in Annapolis, Md., is increasingly relying upon wireless technology to conduct its surveillance operations, including installing a new surveillance camera that transmits data using Sprint and Clearwire's WiMAX network.

Annapolis P.D. first started exploring WiMAX technology in January 2009, when it started a pilot project with Sprint to see how it could integrate WiMAX with its surveillance cameras spread throughout the city. While Annapolis only has one WiMAX-capable surveillance camera installed so far, the police department is asking the city for funding for two additional cameras this summer.

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The next time David Simon writes a show about cops, he may have to call it "The Wireless."

Is Sprint finally rebounding?

That's because the police department in Annapolis, Md., is increasingly relying upon wireless technology to conduct its surveillance operations, including installing a new surveillance camera that transmits data using Sprint and Clearwire's WiMAX network.

Annapolis P.D. first started exploring WiMAX technology in January 2009, when it started a pilot project with Sprint to see how it could integrate WiMAX with its surveillance cameras spread throughout the city. While Annapolis only has one WiMAX-capable surveillance camera installed so far, the police department is asking the city for funding for two additional cameras this summer.

Beth Hart, the special projects director for Annapolis P.D., says that the WiMAX camera is being used in areas that are far away from the center of Annapolis, where surveillance cameras are hooked up to city fiber infrastructure via Wi-Fi connections. The nice thing about using WiMAX, she says, is that the city doesn't have to build out fiber throughout the entire city and can simply rely on over-the-air connectivity wherever Sprint's 4G services are available.

As far as performance of the 4G network itself goes, Hart says the cameras still experience some latency problems depending on how strong the connection in a given area is, but overall she says the cameras run just as well as the Wi-Fi enabled cameras the city has installed throughout central Annapolis. And the best part is that the cameras can be taken down and moved to different areas in the city without having to build out expensive new infrastructure in other areas.

"As long as you have electricity and 4G coverage, you can put a camera wherever you want," Hart says. "You don't need a point-to-point antenna and you don't need fiber going out to areas where we want to have cameras."

Right now Sprint only has part of its WiMAX network up and running in Annapolis, but once it's operational throughout the entire city, Hart expects the police department to use it as its network of choice for its mobile computers. This will give the police department the ability to run background checks and emergency communications over a secure mobile network anywhere in the city, she says.

Sprint first launched its WiMAX services commercially in Baltimore in September 2008 and has slowly been expanding it to major markets throughout the United States over the past two years. Sprint buys access to WiMAX services through a wholesale agreement with ISP Clearwire, whose commercial WiMAX services are currently available in more than 27 U.S. markets covering more than 34 million points of presence (POP). By year-end, Clearwire aims to have built out a WiMAX network that spans all major U.S. markets and that covers 120 million POPs. Other big-name companies with wholesale agreements with Clearwire include Comcast and Time-Warner Cable.

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