View Single Post
  #193  
Old 11-15-2021, 08:36 PM
C2C3PO C2C3PO is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Edmonton, Alberta
Posts: 260
Default

Calgarychef to answer your question;

Infrastructure.
Secure I.T. infrastructure capable of handling large dumps of data and that connects each and every satellite building that they work out of with a central location that collects the data.
They aren't opening up their iTunes account and backing up to the Apple iCloud.
This requires a heck of a lot more than you think when you have hundreds of people downloading simultaneously out-of and in-to specific drop points.
Even the live CCTV footage from all building cameras that currently is transferred and retained it takes so much bandwidth it is painfully slow.
There are all kinds of technical challenges and they can all be resolved but it costs a lot of money especially since by the time they institute a solution "across the board" a year later something new comes out and the old equipment isn't supported anymore.
I have personally sat in on many of these meetings and can say that they constantly revisit the issue hoping newer technology and dropping costs will allow them to institute the program but as already said when you have other competing priorities for budgets that will be shrinking over the next foreseeable future I don't see it being done in the immediate future.

Companies that make specialized equipment for police agencies often make all the peripheral equipment needed such as docking stations etc proprietary. Then they charge exorbitant annual licensing fees for continued use of their software.
They charge many times what a consumer product would fetch for similar technology but as soon as they see it is for police use an obscene premium is charged.
Again the bureaucracy behind these initiatives is beyond belief sometimes but it definitely has become an industry all unto itself that most cities couldn't afford unless they raised property taxes even more.