Here’s the new on public safety use of broadband from one of the vendors (Icomera) providing the service:

Maple Grove Fire Department in Minnesota has chosen the award-winning Moovbox M200 to provide real-time, secure communication services on emergency response vehicles at broadband speeds. The Fire Department will take advantage of the dual redundant high-speed cellular links available in the Moovbox M200 to connect vehicles to a central command facility in the event of nuclear emergencies. The system was designed and provisioned by Icomera US distributor SinglePoint Communications of Portland, OR and included specialist public safety grade antennas and amplifiers to maximize signal quality and data throughput to the vehicles.

I thought the tech details would be interesting to some; but the application interesting to most of us. Here’s more on the application from the product press release:

“We provide the field teams for both of the nuclear power plants in Minnesota, and it is critical that we have digital communications with the State Emergency Operations Center that we can rely on,” said Kurt Kramer, Deputy Fire Chief at Maple Grove FD. “Our teams are responsible for the detection and sampling of radioactive materials downwind of the release in the unlikely event of a problem at the plants. As a result, we require secure and reliable VPN connections for receiving current weather data and mapping information, and maintaining a real-time wireless broadband link with the Operations Center. During a recent drill the Moovbox M200 performed flawlessly, even in areas where previously we’d not been able to acquire a cellular connection. The Moovbox provides the most rock- solid performance we’ve seen; it is impressive and clearly fulfils our needs for emergency data communications.”