Question about MDT's

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jchabalie
New User
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu May 22, 2008 8:23 am
What radios do you own?: CDM1250, HT1250's

Question about MDT's

Post by jchabalie »

Hello. My fire department currently has Panasonic Toughbook's installed in our Engine and Rescue and set up as MDT's to access the CAD for our County 911. We have them connected to the internet via Sprint air cards. My question is, is there a way to have the laptops connect automatically to our station wifi when our trucks are in house, and then have them automatically switch back to the air card when we leave for a call? Our problem is, when the laptops sit idle for too long between use, they get bumped off-line and the air card needs to be reconnected when we need them for a call. Thank you for any help.
Jim202
Posts: 3609
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: Question about MDT's

Post by Jim202 »

jchabalie wrote:Hello. My fire department currently has Panasonic Toughbook's installed in our Engine and Rescue and set up as MDT's to access the CAD for our County 911. We have them connected to the internet via Sprint air cards. My question is, is there a way to have the laptops connect automatically to our station wifi when our trucks are in house, and then have them automatically switch back to the air card when we leave for a call? Our problem is, when the laptops sit idle for too long between use, they get bumped off-line and the air card needs to be reconnected when we need them for a call. Thank you for any help.


Sprint doesn't like an idle connection as your finding. Depending on the service you have for unlimited use or clocked, you may be able to switch the lan connection and see if you can set up priority connections and use the wifi as prime ans the Sprint as secondary.

Need to talk with an IT geek to really get the right answer.

Jim
tvsjr
Posts: 4118
Joined: Fri Nov 28, 2003 9:46 am

Re: Question about MDT's

Post by tvsjr »

It's not the cheapest solution, but I would suggest moving away from having the cards directly installed and instead looking at Cradlepoint routers, the IBR600 being my favorite. You could get the IBR600 with the Sprint modem built in, the connect it to external PCS and WiFi antennas. Once done, you configure the WiFi-as-WAN functionality, and set WiFi as priority over the Sprint interface. The Cradlepoint will then handle the switching, and the computer will just see a local LAN IP address. Run Ethernet from the laptop to the Cradlepoint for the LAN connectivity and you're set.

The routers are about $500/ea., plus whatever external antennas/mounts you choose to run. The external antennas will also give you substantially better coverage on the PCS side.
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