Cisco Unveils New Security System at Republican National Convention

A recent press release from Cisco, Interoperable Public Safety Broadband Network Deployed at the Republican National Convention, highlights some remarkable advances in security and multi-vendor collaboration. The press release, from September 17, states:

“A consortium comprised of Cisco, Raytheon, Nokia Siemens Networks, Reality Mobile and Amdocs successfully deployed the nation’s first demonstrated multi-vendor interoperable Public Safety Long Term Evolution (LTE) network during the Republican National Convention (Convention). This broadband network provided first responders with a secure way to share real-time video, voice, and data communications via smartphones and tablets.”

The collaboration was remarkable, and holds great promise for future events. During the convention, security officials were able to share and receive live video, and quickly share resources digitally. The press release describes this remarkable process:

“The Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties operations centers and field personnel were provided secure access to the LTE system applications to support command awareness and enable sharing of real-time activity with executive staff and public information officials as needed. The Cisco IP Interoperability and Collaboration System (IPICS), Cisco Jabber, and the RealityVision applications allowed law enforcement officers and intelligence teams to receive and share live video, and position information about crowd movements well in advance of media and public social networking. The applications integrated fixed camera feeds, live video transmitted from smartphones, GPS-enabled blue force tracking, and Land Mobile Radio P25 push-to-talk voice resources from existing federal, state, and local radio systems.”

Certainly, this kind of collaboration holds great promise for future events and providing security in large crowds and events. Chris Josephs, director of National Security, Cisco, stated, “Our project was a first step in an emerging era for enhanced communications and information sharing among public safety, law enforcement and other national security officials. It is a proof point for using dedicated broadband wireless network services for situational awareness and other applications, demonstrating the same flexibility and cost-effective choices that commercial LTE systems provide, but to support the more demanding missions of our nation’s safety and security agencies.”

You can read the entire press release here, this was an interesting development – and am curious how this kind of collaboration will evolve.

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