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CORPUS
CHRISTI, TEXAS, TO DEPLOY TROPOS NETWORKS METRO-SCALE WI-FI
TO INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY, LOWER COSTS |
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First Phase of 147 Square Mile Project for Automated Meter
Reading, Public Works, Police and Fire Use |
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CORPUS CHRISTI, TX, July 28, 2004
Tropos Networks, the leading supplier of equipment used to build
metro-scale Wi-Fi networks, today announced that the City of
Corpus Christi, Texas, will deploy the Tropos Wi-Fi system for
use by the city-owned water and gas utilities, public works
departments, and public safety agencies. The city anticipates
significant cost savings and increased effectiveness in the
mobile workforce as a result of the wireless broadband network.
After successful deployment of the 18.5 square mile first phase,
the city plans a complete build-out of the entire 147 square
miles of Corpus Christi by March of 2005. |
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The most immediate cost savings will be seen
as a result of the automated gas and water meter reading that
will utilize the Tropos metro-scale Wi-Fi system to relay automatically
generated usage information twice per day from all meters in
the coverage area. By eliminating the need for utility personnel
to visit each meter and manually record customer consumption,
the city can more quickly and accurately provide up-to-date
billing information to their service recipients. Additionally,
utility customers have immediate, real-time usage data available
to them through a Web-based billing and information system run
by the city and automatically updated with each wireless meter
polling. |
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“We saw an exciting opportunity to
simultaneously increase our customer service standards while
reducing operating costs,” said George “Skip”
Noe, Corpus Christi’s City Manager. “The Tropos
system is very quick and easy to deploy, and allows us to implement
a plethora of communications tools across many city departments.
I think we’ve only scratched the surface of the applications
that this system will enable.”
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In refining the scope of the Wi-Fi deployment,
and conducting detailed research for the bid process, the City
of Corpus Christi worked closely with Public Technology, Inc.
(PTI), a national non-profit technology research and development
organization based in Washington, DC, representing local governments
nationwide. PTI’s mission is to bring the benefits of
technology to local governments. |
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“The Corpus Christi wireless project
is a perfect example of how technology, when properly applied,
can make local government more efficient and effective,”
said Brian Anderson, Chief Information Officer for PTI. “Once
the scope of the project was established, it became clear that
an open-standards solution from Tropos was the simplest and
most economical way to achieve the City’s goals.” |
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In addition to the utility applications,
the network will be available for use by city public works crews,
as well as the Corpus Christi Police and Fire Departments. The
public safety agencies, with more than 315 police, fire, and
EMS vehicles in their collective fleet, will use VPN authenticated
access to all of the applications currently available only in
their offices. The city also plans to operate GPS-based asset
and vehicle tracking applications over the Wi-Fi network, increasing
both officer and community safety. |
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The pilot network will utilize approximately
300 Tropos 5110 Wi-Fi cells, an outdoor-optimized and ruggedized
wireless mesh router based on the 802.11 standard. The Tropos
5110 quickly and economically uses the intelligent Tropos Predictive
Wireless Routing Protocol (PWRP) to provide pervasive coverage
over metro areas. The Tropos PWRP routes traffic wirelessly,
eliminating up to 95% of the wired backhaul associated with
traditional access point solutions. Tropos Wi-Fi cells form
a wireless mesh, dynamically routing traffic along the highest
throughput path to a wired gateway. This intelligent routing
negates effects of radio frequency (RF) interference, wired
backhaul failure and node failure. PWRP also scales to thousands
of nodes with the lowest routing overhead in the industry. To
further minimize costs, Corpus Christi will use existing city
fiber for its minimal required wired backhaul connections. Network
support costs are minimized via the central management capabilities
of the Tropos Control Element Manager, a configuration, monitoring
and maintenance tool. |
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About Public Technology, Inc.
Public Technology, Inc. (PTI) is a national non-profit technology
research and development organization based in Washington, DC,
representing local governments. Our mission is to bring the
benefits of technology to local governments. Membership in PTI
is open to all local governments. |
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PTI offers a variety of technology products
and services to assist local governments in addressing their
technology needs. Through research, focus groups, online discussions,
publications, conferences, pilots and demonstrations, and other
information sharing vehicles, PTI’s local government and
industry members work together to develop and apply technology
to the challenges facing communities of all sizes. |
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Tropos Networks, Tropos and PWRP are trademarks
of Tropos Networks, Inc. All other brand or product names are
trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holder(s). |
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