Verizon Frontline, Columbus Division of Police partner to upgrade officer connectivity

COLUMBUS, OHIO - Verizon Frontline late last week completed the deployment of a total of 1,400 new 5G Ultra Wideband (UW)-compatible smartphones to officers and support staff with the Columbus Division of Police.

The new lines come as part of a city initiative designed to help ensure every officer in Columbus is equipped with a smartphone pre-loaded with proprietary law enforcement applications. Providing each law enforcement officer with a city-issued device prevents officers from having to use their personal devices for official business while also helping enhance efficiency and information security.

The devices were rolled out, and the new lines activated, in two phases.

The first 400 new devices were issued as part of a pilot program which ended on November 18. The remaining 1,000 preloaded new devices were distributed this week. As officers came in to receive their new city-issued device, Verizon Frontline representatives were on hand to ensure the devices were completely operational.

In the coming weeks, the Verizon Frontline team will continue its work to help enhance public safety communications in Columbus by assisting the Columbus Division of Police in upgrading an additional 450 devices already in service.

Verizon Frontline is also currently responsible for connecting the city’s fleet of police cruisers.

“For more than 30 years we’ve been working hand-in-hand with public safety agencies to ensure they have the advanced network and solutions they need,” said Maggie Hallbach, President of Verizon Frontline. “The Columbus Division of Police joins more than 37,000 public safety agencies across the nation who trust Verizon Frontline to provide mission-critical connectivity during operations both routine and extreme.”

The Columbus Division of Police’s selection of Verizon Frontline to provide and connect these new devices follows a series of network upgrades in the area.

These upgrades are part of a multi-year redesign of Verizon’s network architecture aimed at staying ahead of exponential data usage increases and upgrading the technology in the network. Network upgrades in Columbus included deploying new cell sites to extend coverage and capacity in local communities. They also include adding more capacity on fiber optic cables to move more data through the network and adding bandwidth to the cellular network.

The recent network upgrades have led to customers having an outstanding experience on the Verizon network in Columbus, OH, according to the nation’s most rigorous scientific testing company RootMetrics®. In the most recent test measuring performance of major wireless carriers throughout Columbus, Verizon was unbeaten for overall network performance, and in fact was also unbeaten in the categories measured including reliability, speed, and data, call and text performance. The most recent results show great speeds for Verizon customers in Columbus with Verizon’s median download speed increasing 50% and median upload speeds increasing 69% since last year in the market.*

Verizon Frontline is the advanced network and technology built for first responders – developed over nearly three decades of partnership with public safety officials and agencies on the front lines – to meet their unique and evolving needs.

* Rankings based on the RootMetrics® Columbus RootScore® Report: 1H 2023. Tested with best commercially available smartphones on three mobile networks across all available network types. Your experiences may vary. The RootMetrics award is not an endorsement of Verizon.