https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Events
    • 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
    • Cookies Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • Microwave/RF
    • T&D World
    • 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
    • Galleries
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Events
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
    • Sponsored content
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • WHY ATTEND
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Registration Opens April 2019-Join Our Mailing List
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookies Policy
  • 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

Incident Command/Situational Awareness


News

Rural Colorado sheriff’s department uses Samsung, Visual Labs, FirstNet to provide an affordable body-cam solution

Rural Colorado sheriff’s department uses Samsung, Visual Labs, FirstNet to provide an affordable body-cam solution

  • Written by Donny Jackson
  • 19th July 2019

Body-camera video has become an important—and sometimes expensive—tool for law-enforcement agencies in recent years, but a Colorado sheriff says he is leveraging Samsung smartphones, FirstNet connectivity and Visual Labs’ video platform to deliver an effective and affordable video solution for his rural department.

Sheriff Tom Ridnour of Kit Carson County, Colo., said that some personnel in his department—like many across the nation—initially were wary about having body cameras, but the value of the system has become apparent during the past two years. And his department’s implementation is evidence that urban agencies with large budgets are not the only public-safety entities that can leverage the video technology, he said.

“If a small agency like us can afford this, anybody can,” Ridnour said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “It’s such a huge tool and it’s so inexpensive for what it saves you, even in terms of just citizen complaints.

“If you get a complaint that you’ve got an officer or a deputy that said such-and-such. Before, there was no way for me to verify it, one way or the other. I always take my officers’ word and I back them up, but things are said sometimes at the heat of the moment. Now, I can verify that. Since we’ve had this [body-camera functionality], I don’t think I’ve had one citizen complaint, because they know that everything’s being recorded.”

Ridnour said that his agency began using the Visual Labs platform in 2017 to enable smartphones to be used as a video camera that could be worn on officers’ bodies. This year, Kit Carson County deputies and other personnel were issued Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones—previously, they used personal devices—with FirstNet connectivity, which has greatly enhanced the video solution, he said.

“We had a lot of coverage issues with our provider before,” Ridnour said. “With FirstNet, we don’t seem to have any dead spots in our county, so it solves our issues of us not having cell-phone coverage.”

Ridnour said that all department vehicles are equipped with Wi-Fi hotspots and FirstNet connectivity, which he said costs less than the service provided by the department’s previous commercial broadband provider. FirstNet service also includes a key bandwidth feature, he said.

“Before, it would work good until you got so much data downloaded, and the carrier would throttle you back,” Ridnour said. “FirstNet doesn’t throttle us back. It’s constantly 15 to 30 MB/s all the time, no matter how much [bandwidth] we use. That’s been huge.”

Moving to the Samsung Galaxy S9—the first smartphone certified as FirstNet Ready—meant that deputies did not have to use their personal device and improved the video quality, because of the Galaxy S9’s camera, Ridnour said. The Samsung devices were provided at no cost to the county, which helped make the option affordable for the budget-conscious department.

“My guys never had an issued cell phone, so they were having to use their own cell phones—their own time and having to pay for it on their own,” Ridnour said. “I was trying to figure out a way to kill two birds with one stone, for lack of a better word.

“So, I was able to get them body cameras, which I wanted, and then also get them a normal cell phone that they didn’t have to worry about paying for. That seemed like a good fix for me, and it was fairly reasonably priced, compared to any other body-camera system that was out there.”

In addition to serving as a body camera and mobile broadband device, the Samsung smartphones also include push-to-talk-over-LTE functionality that officers can use to augment the VHF and 800 MHz LMR system that the county uses, Ridnour said.

“We do use the push-to-talk [over LTE] quite a bit—talking deputy-to-deputy when they’re out, talking about stuff we don’t want everybody hearing over the radio,” Ridnour said. “We’ll use it for surveillance and stuff like that.”

Ridnour said that the voice quality on the push-to-LTE system is “phenomenal—it’s a night-and-day difference” compared to LMR voice.

Overall, the Kit Carson County sheriff’s department paid less than $8,000 in upfront costs for the entire body-camera video solution—one that also is used in the county jail—and the ongoing storage cost of video evidence from Visual Labs is “very inexpensive,” Ridnour said.

Visual Labs supports automatic uploading of video from the field when an officer is within broadband coverage that can be accessed quickly after the fact or even more timely situational awareness in certain circumstances, Ridnour said.

“I can do real-time streaming,” he said. “I can log in on a computer and, if they’re at an incident, they’re busy and I want to see what’s going on, I can log in and watch live footage as it’s happening.”

Ridnour said that the system is straightforward, from a user’s perspective.

“The ease of Visual Labs is huge. My guys don’t have to do anything besides push the button to turn it on,” Ridnour said. “It automatically downloads through the cellular service. So, the minute they are done recording, it downloads in minutes on [Visual Labs’] servers, so I can view it, if I want to.

“There’s nothing for them to do, other than to keep their cell phone charged. That is simply it. They have enough stuff to worry about. They don’t need to worry about driving back to the station, docking and downloading the footage. They don’t have to worry about any of that.”

Reg Jones, Samsung America’s director of public-sector sales, said the ease of use is attributable to officers’ personal familiarity with the devices—“they know how to use smartphones. It’s not like I gave you a new tool that I now need to train you how to use”—and the Samsung Knox device-management solution.

“Samsung Knox is a customization platform that allows our software partners and agencies to customize the physical buttons on the phone to make the buttons have specific purposes other than their out-of-the-box, intended functions,” Jones said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “In the case of Kit Carson County, the external volume buttons on the phone can be used to activate the video camera.”

Jones noted the Visual Labs platform also can be integrated with Samsung’s smart watches and is optimized for the Samsung DeX mobile-desktop platform, although these capabilities have not been implemented by the Kit Carson County sheriff’s department at this time.

Jones applauded Kit Carson County sheriff’s department for its deployment of the body-camera system.

“This is the perfect example of a smaller department that is very conscientious of the way they deploy their budget,” Jones said. “They’re looking for solutions that provide them with the ability to create officer safety, be budget conscious and to future-proof themselves.”

 

Tags: homepage-featured-2 Applications Broadband Push-to-X Companies Coverage/Interference Funding Incident Command/Situational Awareness Long Term Evolution (LTE) News NTIA/FirstNet Policy Public Safety Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet Software State & Local Government Subscriber Devices System Installation System Operation Tracking, Monitoring & Control Video Wireless Networks News

Related


  • First NENA i3-compliant NG911 call to be delivered today in California, officials say
    A California county today is expected to deliver what is believed to be the first end-to-end call to a 911 public-safety answering point (PSAP) that meets the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) i3 standard for next-generation 911 (NG911), according to officials with the state of California and NENA. Budge Currier, 911 and emergency-communications branch manager […]
  • Newscan: Single sign-in for government services expands to states, localities
    Newscan: Single sign-in for government services expands to states, localities
    Web Roundup Items from other news organizations Single sign-in for government services expands to states, localities Iowa taps into FirstNet for 911 backup Top Homeland Security senators want details on agencies hit in SolarWinds, Microsoft intrusions European institutions targeted in cyberattack last week FCC signals potential different outcome for net-neutrality remand 911: Past, present, more […]
  • ‘Life-saving technology’: AST SpaceMobile CEO outlines capabilities of direct-to-smartphone LEO satellite service
    [Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include clarifications about deployment timelines requested from AST SpaceMobile.] First responders and emergency callers subscribing to U.S. carriers and other major service providers will have affordable access to broadband communications beyond the coverage footprint of 4G and 5G terrestrial networks via their normal smart devices in the […]
  • Klobuchar pledges support for NG911 funding, does not address specifics of proposal
    Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)—a co-chair of the Congressional Next-Gen 911 Caucus—vowed to sponsor legislation once again that calls for at least $12 billion in federal funding to upgrade public-safety answering points (PSAPs) to next-generation-911 (NG911) technology, but she did not release any details of her proposal. Two years ago, Klobuchar sponsored  the “Next Generation 911 […]

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

  • Global dwell time drops as ransomware attacks accelerate
  • Satellites poised to join 5G network topology
  • RootMetrics 5G report puts AT&T in first place
  • How smart environments will take shape post-COVID-19

Commentary


Unlocking the power of ESInets: Different NG911 provisioning approaches exist; level of control is key differentiator

7th April 2021

Ransomware? Let’s call it what it really is: extortionware

21st February 2021

Redefining communications for today’s mobile workforces

18th February 2021
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


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
  • Microwave/RF
  • T&D World
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2021 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.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X