Federal law enforcement agencies often work in remote environments, from the Havre Sector in Montana to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, performing interdictions at the border, delivering life-saving aid to travelers, conducting maritime search and rescue operations, or responding to natural disasters.
What many of us civilians consider heroism is merely another day on the line for our law enforcement professionals. In such extreme, isolated regions, connectivity is crucial for personal safety and national security.
Traditional networks may be nonexistent, unreliable or lag in these remote locations where clear, consistent communications are needed most. For law enforcement personnel in the field, connectivity is a lifeline.
However, cellular carriers have no economic driver to develop infrastructure in the most remote regions of the country, meaning bandwidth in secluded border towns like Ajo, Arizona, or Westby, Montana, is unlikely to improve. The current situation requires ingenuity and investment in highly dynamic mobile technologies that can bridge the network availability gap between an agency’s headquarters and its first responders.
As field operators become increasingly dependent on mobile technologies and applications, agencies are investing in digital transformation efforts to equip their workforce with the best possible tools. However, these investments are futile without robust network connectivity.
Modernizing enterprise network architectures, continuing to build from enterprise to edge, and bringing more computing power to the field user are of the utmost focus right now. As a result, law enforcement agencies can advance their vital mission: ensuring national security and personal safety.
Expanding connectivity, modernizing networks and driving data-based decisions
Law enforcement personnel rely on a mixed bag of legacy, modern and cloud-based networks for essential communications.
By transforming legacy network architectures into agile, responsive and dependable networks, agencies can maximize the value of novel edge technologies, such as enhanced biometric capture, non-intrusive inspection, and intelligent hardware ready for its introduction to AI-driven capture, collection and decision-making.
For example, mobile mesh network layers can send critical data without a cellphone, Wi-Fi or satellite connectivity. These mesh networking solutions, such as goTenna, provide enhanced bandwidth analysis and reduce dead zones to help field operators make pivotal decisions at the edge.
Agencies constantly aim to bring processing capability closer to the edge, whether it be to the hands of law enforcement agents or to the hardware that supports their operations. Field personnel can save critical time by processing data at the edge instead of sending it to a centralized location for processing.
There is already an enormous amount of data transversing the agency’s networks, ranging from voice, email and direct messaging to video and imagery data. Intelligent decisions about network traffic routing and data storage are critical. For example, asking, “Does six hours of video capturing the occasional desert fox need to travel the network, and occupy critical bandwidth in the same way as critical situational awareness and communications data from the field?”
Time is of the essence for law enforcement personnel in the field who manage natural disasters and face criminal activity daily, making edge computing a potentially life-saving asset. However, extending connectivity further outward requires a holistic, enterprise-to-edge approach.
Unlocking additional bandwidth and redesigning field site infrastructure with software-defined wide-area/local-area networking (SD-WAN/SD-LAN) drives true transformation. These software-defined networks accelerate data velocity to enable informed decisions.
When data from edge equipment, like towers, cameras and sensors, is integrated and analyzed via a secure software platform, law enforcement agencies can accelerate mission-critical decision-making. These swift, data-driven and proactive decisions can dramatically improve law enforcement agency operations, helping to promote national security and keeping field personnel safe.
Cybersecurity and privacy from enterprise to edge
Notably, federal law enforcement networks require considerable network security to defend against the barrage of cyber threats they face daily. Modern networks based on cloud-based platforms can fortify cybersecurity by running automated reports to identify threats in real-time.
With automated reports, enhanced visibility and cyber analytics, federal law enforcement agencies gain valuable information about threat actor behavior and can prioritize security needs appropriately. Moreover, cyber analytics tools can track impact over time to ensure any cybersecurity upgrades are operating as intended. Anomaly detection is crucial for understanding why behaviors are occurring and what agencies can learn from them.
For law enforcement agencies with smart devices in the field, mobile cybersecurity and privacy solutions must be incorporated at the edge to protect sensitive applications and data, regardless of physical location.
However, as with all digital modernization initiatives, the true value of technology can only be realized when the people using it and the processes supporting it are aligned. That’s why it’s paramount to reevaluate and redesign organizational procedures alongside network upgrades.
People and processes must evolve to support new technology
To ensure an effective network re-architecture, a cultural shift must occur in parallel to the technical upgrades. Too often, enterprise architecture support is disconnected from the field and only engaged when required, which is typically after something has gone wrong.
Field and network personnel traditionally collaborate ad hoc, but this reactive posture can waste critical time. With added connectivity, functionality and traffic optimization, the network team can proactively assist the field team by predicting outages before they occur.
Moreover, consolidating disjointed tools, licenses and products across an agency to create an enterprise architecture can maximize the value of network modernization investments. These investments can’t be for the benefit of a contract ceiling, they must be made for a reason. Not every team is going to have the same requirements. Mission requirements are drastically different depending on geography, desired outcomes, agency funding and personnel capacity, and a savvy investment strategy should reflect that.
For law enforcement agencies facing staffing shortages and resource constraints, enhancing their networks and optimizing the utility of these investments can offset significant strain on the workforce.
There will never be an “end state” in matters of national security. Federal law enforcement agencies are continually striving to improve processing capabilities. As such, building a network architecture and organizational structure that can respond dynamically to new challenges and technologies is critical.
Law enforcement agencies and their private sector partners have a duty to be relentlessly proactive. By constantly striving for better — addressing more vulnerabilities, predicting potential challenges and expanding processing capabilities — law enforcement agencies can harness modern technology to become a revolutionary enabler of personnel safety and national security.
One thing is certain: Agencies cannot “bandwidth out of it.” Cellular carriers are not going to drastically increase their telecommunications infrastructure investment in the middle of nowhere. As such, law enforcement agencies and their private-sector partners must take matters into their own hands by investing in products and people that have the longevity and stamina to continue evolving amid dynamic challenges.
Cale Thorne is vice president of growth of national security and critical infrastructure at DMI.
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