Motorola announces general availability of MotoMesh
Motorola today announced the general availability of its four-radio MotoMesh wireless broadband system and a deployment in Riviera Beach, Fla., focused on video surveillance with the purpose of helping a police department fight crime.
Riviera Beach is using the 4.9 GHz network dedicated to public safety to transmit video from cameras placed in “hot spots” in a 3-square-mile area to observe activity in locations where criminal conduct has occurred historically, Riviera Beach Police Chief Clarence Williams said. In addition to providing evidence after a crime, the video surveillance can be used to alert police officers of a potential situation, so they can proactively defuse before an incident occurs, he said.
“We saw it as another valuable tool to assist us in providing law-enforcement services, in addition the future uses that we anticipate involving other departments,” Williams said, noting that the MotoMesh 2.4 GHz networks will be used by city service departments and administration for a variety of applications.
This flexibility is one of the key reasons Riviera Beach chose the MotoMesh system, Williams said. The initial 3-square-mile deployment was funded with money forfeited after drug arrest, but the city could look to the budgets of several different departments to pay for the final deployment that would cover the entire 10-square-mile town, he said.
Other entities have used Motorola’s mesh-network technology to transmit video, but Riviera Beach is the first to target the surveillance with the primary purpose of deterring criminal activity, said Joe Hamilla, director of engineering for Motorola’s mesh network product group.
Riviera Beach is one of about 20 “reference” customers Motorola has worked with to conduct targeted pilots of its MotoMesh architecture since its product launch last March, Hamilla said. As of today, however, the MotoMesh platform will be generally available to any customer wanting to buy it.
“We went out to different municipalities to get their input on these initial installations,” Hamilla said. “Based on their feedback and the lessons we’ve learned over the last several months, we now have a general availability of this system that we feel can go into any municipality and solve a number of issues. It’s really a comprehensive system.”
