Wifi Revolution

Firetide (News - Alert) has helped the of Los Gatos, located near California’s Silicon Valley, to offer seamless indoor and outdoor wireless connectivity around city facilities to the public and to city employees.

 

The town’s system combines Firetide wireless mesh nodes and access points providing a cost-effective and flexible solution to this historic, yet high-tech town.

 

Chris Gjerde, information systems manager for the Town of Los Gatos said in a statement that in addition to enabling personnel mobility and offering Wi-Fi access to the public, the network delivers other unique benefits, especially with its combination of indoor and outdoor coverage.

 

He added that they consider the Firetide wireless network to be an important part of their emergency preparedness plans. During the 1989 earthquake their Town Hall became unsafe and they had to set up an emergency operations center in the parking lot. With their Firetide network operational in time for a recent emergency drill, they had the same access to critical data whether they were inside or outside of the building.

 

Firetide explains that wireless connectivity currently is available in and around the Town Hall, library, neighborhood center, public works facility and the parks adjacent to the Town Hall. Because the system features multiple virtual access networks, it keeps internal city traffic completely secure and separate from the connectivity offered to public users of the network.

 

In the second phase of the project, Firetide will provide wireless access to the Los Gatos/Monte Sereno Police Department over the same physical infrastructure, saving equipment and installation costs. The Town of Los Gatos is also outfitting police cruisers with in-car video. The ability to wirelessly offload video over a secure connection will alleviate the need to manually plug and unplug digital video recorders during patrol shift changes.

 

“The Town of Los Gatos, which Firetide is proud to call home, is a model for other communities considering broadband initiatives to support city services, public safety and public access,” said Bo Larsson, chief executive officer of Firetide.

 

Larsson added that in forward thinking, Los Gatos has chosen to deploy a wireless network that not only meets the needs of its businesses, visitors and residents today, but in the future as well. She believes this is excellent news for town taxpayers, who will not be burdened with forklift upgrade costs as the network is expanded to support more applications and deliver even greater value to the community.

 

 Firetide is a provider of wireless mesh and access networks that enable concurrent video, voice, and data for municipal, public safety, and enterprise applications. Recently, Seoul City deployed an advanced wireless mesh and access network provided by Firetide Inc. and designed and installed by Samsung (News - Alert) SDS. The Firetide wireless network supports diverse applications including visitor information beamed on to rented PDAs, public video surveillance and underwater video cameras for monitoring wildlife in the stream.

 

 

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