https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • Product Guides
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • IWCE
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Premier Partners
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookie Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • TU-Auto
  • In the field
    • Back
    • In the field
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Internet of Things
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Call Center/Command
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Network Tech
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Operations
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Regulations
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • Organizations
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
Urgent Communications
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Omdia Crit Comms Circle Podcast
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • Product Guides
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
    • Sponsored content
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • Why Attend
    • Exhibitor Listing
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Join the Event Mailing List
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Cookie Policy
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • TU-Auto
  • newsletter
  • In the field
    • Back
    • Internet of Things
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Cybersecurity
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
acc.com

Call Center/Command


Motorola focuses on the other side of video

Motorola focuses on the other side of video

Video will make first responders more efficient and productive, said Thomas Quirke, Motorola's director of solutions marketing, who spoke about video and its myriad capabilities at a company media day.
  • Written by Urgent Communications Administrator
  • 28th May 2010

The public-safety sector largely is bullish about integrating video into its operations. The thinking is that video will generate incontrovertible evidence that can be used in court to gain convictions. Video will tell incident commanders exactly what is happening at an event, which help them make better decisions. The same holds true for dispatchers. Video will protect first responders from wrongful claims of malfeasance or negligence, and it will greatly enhance surveillance efforts.

Video also will make first responders more efficient and productive, said Thomas Quirke, Motorola’s director of solutions marketing, who spoke about video and its myriad capabilities at a media day that recently was held at the company’s Schaumburg, Ill., headquarters outside Chicago. He offered automatic license plate technology — a solution that police officers use, in part, to determine whether the vehicle is linked to a known suspect — as an example.

“Such systems can scan and process as many as 5,000 license plates in one shift,” Quirke said. “The traditional way of doing this would be to call or type in a plate and then wait for a response, which would take a few seconds. Realistically, you could do only 30 to 40 per shift.”

So, video is becoming a bigger tool in the first-responder toolbox. Conventional wisdom says that its value will increase exponentially should the proposed nationwide broadband network for first responders get built. But Quirke cautioned that video only is as good as an agency’s ability to use it effectively. For instance, a video system might produce an overwhelming amount of data, or an agency’s personnel might not have been adequately trained to process what they’re seeing. In that case, analytics technology can be a big help.

But even analytics has its limits, Quirke said. “It’s not like some of the television programs that you see, where they can do amazing things with it,” he said.

Nevertheless, analytics applications, even when they are performing the simplest of tasks, can be extremely effective, Quirke said. He showed an example where a video camera was trained on an escalator in a shopping mall, and the analytics program was counting the number of people going up and down the moving staircase. “When a fire breaks out, the first thing the incident commander is going to want to know is how many people are in the building and where they are,” Quirke said.

Storage poses another challenge for any agency that wants to utilize video, as such systems generate an enormous amount of data. Not only is the sheer size of the files problematic, but they have to be stored in total on multiple mirror sites for redundancy purposes, which is an expensive proposition. Compressing the video to conserve server space always is possible, but it’s not the best option, because certain details about a suspect or the alleged incident that were seen on the live feed could be lost, which would make the video less effective in court, Quirke said. With this in mind, Motorola worked with third-party data-storage solutions developers to engineer a storage solution that relies on algorithms and error-control coding to do the job.

“You take the series of 1s and 0s that make up the picture and then you randomize them, shuffle them about in a predetermined way, which is the error-control part,” Quirke said. “So if you lose a little bit, you know that it’s a randomized error.”

Then the algorithm is run to create additional 1s and 0s — using complex mathematical formulas that recognize the digital patterns of the image — that can be used to reconstruct any data that was lost. The result is that every video file can be broken into pieces that can be stored one time on whatever servers are available — even those outside of the agency’s facility — and later retrieved and reassembled, much in the same way that IP networks packetize voice and data to transmit them over the most expedient pathway. Goodbye mirror sites, Quirke said.

Still another challenge concerns bandwidth. Video files take up a lot of it. Motorola demonstrated the prioritization capability of the LTE technology it is developing for private public-safety networks.

Say, for example, that a city has multiple fixed video surveillance cameras that provide 24/7 monitoring of key areas, such as the downtown business district, tourist attractions and schools. Then, an incident occurs where they want aerial surveillance of the event from a police helicopter as well as ground coverage from mobile cameras. At this point, the prioritization function would let communications officials dial back the resolution of the video captured by the fixed cameras to conserve bandwidth, so that additional bandwidth could be given to the incident video.

“A mobile broadband network will have all kinds of traffic on there, so you have to be able to zero in on what video streams are important to you right now … because [the network] very quickly can get overextended in an emergency,” Quirke said.

The downside is that lower resolution generally makes video less effective and non-prioritized video is prone to becoming pixilated or, worse, disappearing. Such bandwidth-oriented woes theoretically would disappear should the 700 MHz D Block — spectrum currently scheduled to be auctioned to commercial entities — be reallocated to public-safety, a concept Motorola supports, said co-CEO Greg Brown.

Bob Schassler, vice president of government and public-safety products, worries what would happen if public-safety video has to be transmitted over a commercial LTE network.

“It’s going to be next to impossible for the carriers to prioritize and manage an incident the way that our public-safety customers need it to be managed,” Schassler said. “What we’ve been trying to do with the FCC [regarding D Block reallocation] is to state the technical facts, so that everyone makes an informed decision.”

Related Stories

  • Perfecting the mix: Motorola integrates commercial, mission-critical solutions
  • Here’s looking at you: New generation of real-time surveillance capabilities
Tags: Call Center/Command content

Most Recent


  • AT&T becoming a “public-safety company” with FirstNet, NG911 work, exec says
    AT&T has long been one of the greatest consumer communications brands in the world, but the carrier is beginning to become “a public-safety company” through its first-responder-centric efforts in the development of FirstNet and next-generation 911 (NG911) networks, according to Scott Agnew, the new COO of AT&T’s FirstNet team. Two weeks ago, AT&T executives revealed […]
  • Command-injection bug in Cisco industrial gear opens devices to complete takeover
    A security vulnerability has been found in Cisco gear used in data centers, large enterprises, industrial factories, power plants, manufacturing centers, and smart city power grids that could allow cyberattackers unfettered access to these devices and broader networks. In a report published on Feb. 1, researchers from Trellix revealed the bug, one of two vulnerabilities discovered that […]
  • AR-based next-gen maps aim to rebalance detail and simplicity
    Every sat-nav user is familiar with the chagrin of missing their turn because the map’s lines and circles don’t resemble the real world. Yandex is blaming maps, not users, for these errors. At its annual conference in December, the company presented its re-designed maps boasting natural-looking 3D objects such as trees, bus stops, colored buildings, […]
  • Vodafone UK starts 'risky' shift to 5G standalone
    Vodafone’s Andrea Dona has unflattering words for some of the IT products that could sit inside his high-performance 5G network. “There are OSS limitations,” said the chief network officer of the UK service provider, referring to operational support systems from unnamed vendors. “If there is full automation on the 5G element, and the OSS is […]

Leave a comment Cancel reply

To leave a comment login with your Urgent Comms account:

Log in with your Urgent Comms account

Or alternatively provide your name, email address below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • New Orleans-area 911 center inks multiyear APEX deal with Carbyne to replace call-handling system
  • Motorola focuses on the other side of video
    Newscan: Feds recover millions from pipeline ransom hackers, hint at U.S. Internet tactic
  • Cyber is the new Cold War, and AI is the arms race
  • Private wireless networks in the US start going public

Commentary


How 5G is making cities safer, smarter, and more efficient

26th January 2023

3GPP moves Release 18 freeze date to March 2024

18th January 2023

Do smart cities make safer cities?

  • 1
6th January 2023
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


UrgentComm

AT&T becoming a “public-safety company” with FirstNet, NG911 work, exec says dlvr.it/Sj8FXL

9th February 2023
UrgentComm

Command-injection bug in Cisco industrial gear opens devices to complete takeover dlvr.it/Sj6X3l

8th February 2023
UrgentComm

AR-based next-gen maps aim to rebalance detail and simplicity dlvr.it/Sj4gdM

7th February 2023
UrgentComm

Vodafone UK starts ‘risky’ shift to 5G standalone dlvr.it/Sj4dPJ

7th February 2023
UrgentComm

ChatGPT may be fastest-growing app of all time, UBS Says dlvr.it/Sj4NfL

7th February 2023
UrgentComm

Public-safety coalition renews efforts to secure federal NG911 funding dlvr.it/ShwGfn

4th February 2023
UrgentComm

Newscan: Cyberattacks on DoE national labs draw lawmaker scrutiny dlvr.it/Shvpw3

3rd February 2023
UrgentComm

The shine begins to wear off 5G private wireless dlvr.it/Shth0P

3rd February 2023

Newsletter

Sign up for UrgentComm’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about Communications and Technology.

Expert Commentary

Learn from experts about the latest technology in automation, machine-learning, big data and cybersecurity.

Business Media

Find the latest videos and media from the market leaders.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital and print audiences? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • American City & County
  • IWCE
  • Light Reading
  • IOT World Today
  • Mission Critical Technologies
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2023 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.