The cities of Chattanooga and Collegedale are beginning conversations about a wireless network buildout that is expected to eventually cover the entire county.
Chattanooga has been using the system to support surveillance cameras as well as “countless [other] applications … for some time,” said Dan Johnson, chief of staff for Mayor Ron Littlefield.
“All sorts of devices can use that,” he said in regards to the infrastructure, “cameras, radios and other kinds of devices that technology allows you to communicate with. It’s not just surveillance, it’s used as a communication device. You’d only use surveillance in areas needed to be surveyed. We’re not going to have a mass proliferation of cameras.”
Johnson estimates there are already probably 200 cameras deployed around the area, both inside and outside buildings, throughout Coolidge Park, on bridges and “some of them I won’t tell you where they are – that just needs to be kept secret.”
“You’re going to see a lot more of these,” said Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond. “Any place we put one is going to make sense, a high-alert area or traffic [congestion spot].”