AIRDESK - TESTIMONIALS AND CASE STUDIES

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CASE STUDIES

ADT/AIRDESK- Monitoring of Parolees

A Public Safety Issue
ADT is a leading security company operating throughout the US and internationally.
One of their services is to provide parole monitoring of offenders in their homes to check they are always within their designated home areas at required times. This is a public safety issue and there is therefore a critical requirement to ensure that irregular movements or behaviour by the offender is reported quickly to the relevant authority, for example the parole officer looking after the offender. In situations where action is required, this reporting must typically take place within three minutes.

ADT uses a system where an Ankle Bracelet is attached to each offender. This transmits a message regularly to a Home Base Unit using a short distance RF "wireless leash". The range of this RF link can then be set according to the area and environment it is to be used in. If the regular message is not received by the Base Unit, then the Base Unit in turn sends out an alarm. If the Bracelet is tampered with, for example the strap cut or body contact lost, then the Bracelet sends a different message resulting in an alarm from the Base Unit. If the Base Unit itself is moved or opened, it sends a different alarm.

Base Units are linked through either fixed telephone lines or cellular mobile connections to ADT's monitoring centre that notifies the relevant parole officer of status on a regular basis and immediately of an alarm situation.

The problem for ADT was that the cellular mobile links used were on analogue AMPS networks, whose service is now diminishing in the US. They needed to find a replacement technology that operated nationwide.

Using GSM Cellular
For a variety of reasons, GSM cellular was chosen as the most appropriate solution, using CSD mode (Circuit Switched Data) rather than SMS (Short Message Service). However, suitable coverage of GSM/CSD throughout the US was not available at that time.

AIRDESK is a market leading provider of wireless M2M solutions operating throughout North and South America and became involved to find a solution to this problem. AIRDESK therefore acted as the key enabler and worked closely with T-Mobile US on the requirements to make the solution work on GSM/CSD. This involved a significant upgrading of T-Mobile's network.

Before being approached by AIRDESK, T-Mobile had decided not to invest further in CSD and instead to move resources to implementing GPRS. However, AIRDESK advised against closing the CSD option on the basis of potential new business. T-Mobile subsequently researched this themselves and decided to change their policy - to build up the CSD capability instead.

This meant that T-Mobile needed to upgrade the switches in each of their Network Operation Centres across the US. The roll-out commenced in the Chicago area, consistent with ADT's immediate requirements and subsequently continued nationwide with AIRDESK identifying operational issues as the roll-out progressed.

Initially, the solution was designed for the Base Units to call a fixed line number over the cellular network, which subsequently connected through to ADT's monitoring centre. However, by introducing mobile to mobile calling, AIRDESK has been able to further significantly reduce operational costs for ADT. The Base Units now call GSM modems direct at ADT's monitoring centre. As a result, minutes of airtime use purchased from T-Mobile can be pooled. Inclusive minutes bought as part of a rate plan can be shared between all Base Units so that those using more than the average minutes can be balanced by those using less. This corresponds to some Base Units needing to send more messages than others, due to the behaviour of particular offenders. An elegant pooling solution has therefore been achieved.

According to Tom Positano, ADT's project manager, "The implementation of this program has been problem-free. By following AIRDESK's advice we're also planning on at least a 50% saving on communication costs compared with what we had before".

ADT is already monitoring over 1000 offenders with this method across the US and this is expected to increase substantially over the next few years.

Some key benefits of this solution

A unit can be placed almost anywhere, so long as there is coverage.

There is therefore no need to wait for an offender to buy a line and have it installed. Many offenders may not be able to afford to buy a line.

This improves the prospects of using this solution to reduce the prison population.

Cost savings of mobile to mobile solution are substantial. ADT expects at least 50% saving compared with the previous wireless solution and often more.