About IPSAN
The Illinois Public Safety Agency Network (IPSAN) is a public safety owned, operated and controlled, non-profit 501C(6) Organization and 501C(3) Foundation. Sheriffs’, Police Chiefs’ and Fire Chiefs’ of Illinois own IPSAN and, even though IPSAN was officially created July 1, 2006, the public safety agencies have worked together across the State of Illinois since the very early 80’s. Dedicated Sheriffs’, Police Chiefs’ and Fire Chiefs’ pulled together as a team; brought their needs and wish lists to the technicians; who created the software that ultimately achieved IPSAN’s public safety goal.
Most vendors will charge an extreme amount of money for public safety software, which the agencies cannot afford. IPSAN owns the software and gives it to the IPSAN agencies free of charge. An affordable monthly maintenance fee is paid per device to keep the data facility operational.
IPSAN’s initial software, created in the early 80’s along with the 800MHz infrastructure was called ALERTS (Area-wide Law Enforcement Radio Terminal System) both are still in place and used today. In late 2005, the cellular and Internet platforms were introduced as a form of transmission and the BULLET (Basic Unified Local Law Enforcement Transmission) application was created. IPSAN has a multi-level protection system available to agency vehicles; 800MHz, cellular or WIFI. In the event of a catastrophic disaster, the cellular system might be compromised; however, the 800MHz system will be available because it is IPSAN’s privately owned infrastructure.
In the last two years, the cellular version of BULLET, used in vehicles, was updated to include GPS and AVL (automatic vehicle location); the traffic stop (racial profiling) screen was also added. A minimized version of BULLET was created and made to fit on a hand held device. This application is called mini-BULLET.
IPSAN researches, develops, operates, and maintains the computer hardware components used to support the infrastructure and telecommunications equipment. Agencies obtain their own in-car terminals and pay IPSAN an affordable fee for system operation and maintenance. This arrangement allows individual agencies to keep their costs down while gaining access to a dynamic, state-of-the-art system.
