Pinellas County, Fla., Sheriff's Office Deploys Wi-Fi in County Jail

Yesterday, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office announced that it has deployed an advanced wireless network within one of Florida's largest jail facilities using solutions from Wavelink Corp.

The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office is among the first to deploy a wireless jail management system that assures that conditions for the inmates, deputies and staff are at the highest levels of safety and efficiency at all times. The wireless network supports a variety of handheld devices and applications used by deputies and other staff to monitor inmate health and well-being, provide instant access to inmate records and photos and record location of inmates. The system also supports wireless Voice over IP (VoIP) communications among deputies.

Network administrators recognized the need for a centralized management solution to keep administrative costs down, while maintaining consistent security and performance across a growing multi-vendor network. The new system has enabled the sheriff's office to centrally manage configuration and security profiles, apply software updates and monitor and respond to network health and performance issues without having to physically access the network infrastructure or wireless devices. Network changes and maintenance that, without centralized management, would have taken several administrators weeks to roll out are now easily accomplished by one administrator in a matter of days.