Public safety network
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Public safety agencies at various levels of government have joined together to share information and communicate when faced with
public safety Public security or public safety is the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety and security of the public from significant danger, injury, or property damage. It is often conducted by a state government to ensure ...
incidents. Interagency collaboration initiatives of this nature result in the creation of public safety networks. Public safety networks may originate at any level of government, and their user base may span a single or multiple geographies. Such a network of public safety agencies, supported by an information and communications technology infrastructure, emerges from the individual and collaborative behaviors of their member agencies. This description focuses on public safety networks in the United States. Public safety networks have received more attention and priority as the country deals with increasing threats from terrorism and natural disasters. Public safety networks are defined differently as seen from different perspectives. From an organizational systems perspective a public safety network is an information technology (IT) enabled collaborative, inter-organizational system. From a
communications network A telecommunications network is a group of nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit switching, messa ...
perspective it is a wireless network used by
emergency services Emergency services and rescue services are organizations that ensure public safety and health by addressing and resolving different emergencies. Some of these agencies exist solely for addressing certain types of emergencies, while others deal wit ...
. Both definitions are accepted within the public safety sector.


Organizational perspective

Public safety organizations are limited in their ability to communicate and share information with other agencies even though they have the technology in place to do so within their own boundaries. Public safety networks help agencies realize the value of joining together to design, develop and deploy information and communications technologies to support policing, criminal justice, public safety and homeland security. From the organizational perspective a public safety network is an interagency collaboration focused on the development and use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to support the information sharing and functional interoperability needs of public safety organizations engaged in law enforcement, criminal justice, and emergency response. As such a public safety network is a specific form of the broad class of inter-organizational information sharing systems (IOS) supporting information sharing among police and other public safety agencies. As an IOS a public safety network has an inherent complexity due to the wide range of factors that compromise the network. The formation, structure and operation of public safety network can be affected by any number of factors including rational choices made by public safety officials, political priorities, institutional considerations and capabilities of enabling ICT. The number of potential factors lending themselves to the explanation and understanding of public safety network is considerable. Organizational perspective on public safety networks have used frameworks from rational choice, institutional, and complexity theory to understand their formation and operations.


Communications perspective

From the communications perspective a public safety network is a wireless communications network used by emergency services organizations, such as police, fire and emergency medical services, to prevent or respond to incidents that harm or endanger persons or property. Many municipalities are turning to
mobile computing Mobile computing is human–computer interaction in which a computer is expected to be transported during normal usage, which allows for the transmission of data, voice, and video. Mobile computing involves mobile communication, mobile hardware ...
and other networked applications to improve the efficiency of their workforce, including public safety personnel and first responders. Consequently, public safety workers are increasingly being equipped with wireless laptops, handheld computers, and mobile video cameras to improve their efficiency, visibility, and ability to instantly collaborate with central command, coworkers and other agencies.
Video surveillance Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly tr ...
cameras and unattended sensors are becoming important tools to extend the eyes and ears of public safety agencies. A pilot study along the US-Mexico border uses a wireless mesh network. The need to access and share this vital new flow of data and images is driving investments in a new kind of network: broadband
wireless mesh network A wireless mesh network (WMN) is a communications network made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology. It can also be a form of wireless ad hoc network.Chai Keong Toh Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks, Prentice Hall Publishers, 2002. A m ...
s using
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...
,
WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMAX ...
, and 4.9 GHz public safety radio frequencies. These networks are metropolitan or regional in scope, can maintain connections with highly mobile workers, deliver large amounts of low-cost bandwidth with extremely high reliability, and support real-time video, voice and data.


See also

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Interorganizational system An interorganizational system (IOS) is a system between organizations, or "shared information system among a group of companies."A. Gunasekaran, Maqsood Sandhu (2010) ''Handbook on Business Information Systems.'' p. 773 The most common form of inter ...
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Information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, information storage, store, and information distribution, distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems a ...
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Intergovernmental organizations An international organization or international organisation (see spelling differences), also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is a stable set of norms and rules meant to govern the behavior of states a ...
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Emergency Communication System An emergency communication system (ECS) is any system (typically computer-based) that is organized for the primary purpose of supporting one-way and two-way communication of emergency information between both individuals and groups of individuals. ...
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IEEE 802.11 IEEE 802.11 is part of the IEEE 802 set of local area network (LAN) technical standards, and specifies the set of media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) protocols for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer commun ...
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Mesh networking A mesh network is a local area network topology in which the infrastructure nodes (i.e. bridges, switches, and other infrastructure devices) connect directly, dynamically and non-hierarchically to as many other nodes as possible and cooperate wit ...
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Municipal broadband Municipal broadband is broadband Internet access owned by public entities. Services are often provided either fully or partially by local governments to residents within certain areas or jurisdictions. Common connection technologies include unlice ...
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Public safety Public security or public safety is the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety and security of the public from significant danger, injury, or property damage. It is often conducted by a state government to ensure ...
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Switched mesh A switched mesh is a wireless mesh network that uses multiple radios to communicate via dedicated mesh backhaul links to each neighboring node in the mesh. Here all of the available bandwidth of each separate radio channel is dedicated to the l ...
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Wireless LAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and bus ...
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Wireless network A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and business installations avoid the costly process of introducing c ...
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Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...
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802.16 IEEE 802.16 is a series of wireless broadband standards written by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The IEEE Standards Board established a working group in 1999 to develop standards for broadband for wireless metro ...


References

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External links



- The Public Safety Networks Study, projects #IIS-0534877 & #IIS-053488, sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

- The National Science Foundation Digital Government Research Program

- eGovernment Resource Centre
UMass Amherst
- National Center for Digital Government

- Bentley University Department of Information and Process Management

- Syracuse University School of Information Studies

- The Pennsylvania State University College of Information Sciences and Technology

- Washington & Jefferson College Department of Technology Leadership

- The Center for Technology in Government

- The Capital Wireless Integrated Net (CapWIN)

- Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS)

- Pennsylvania Justice Network (JNET) Public safety networks,