BY December this year, the City of Stirling will be the most advanced location in the world, in terms of communications technology, with its residents able to connect to each other over a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) using light posts as antennae.
Telemetric Media Information managing director Mervyn Dobbins made the claim saying that by the end of September, the suburbs of Osborne Park, Scarborough Beach and Innaloo will all be connected to the Mirrabooka Police station using the company’s technology.
The remaining City of Stirling suburbs are due to go online by December this year.
The City of Stirling is the beta test site for the image management firm’s cityNEX system – a wireless broadband network that can be used by police and emergency services, government, advertisers and residents within the community.
The cityNEX system is designed to be used in conjunction with the NEXiposters – electronic sign posts – and an image management and urban surveillance system called NEXiTrack.
NEXiTrack uses artificial intelligence through a system of computers and surveillance cameras to ‘see’ and analyse specified things within a community.
Its uses include determining when maintenance functions are required or in crime prevention such as recording vehicle information.
TMI is the brain child of Mr Dobbins, a recent winner of a Telstra Business Idea’s grant in the ‘Best Idea Product Development Stage’ category, who said his work in water pollution control gave him the idea for the concept.
He started the company in 1997 and funded the research and development largely through overseas venture capital funding.
Mr Dobbins said the technology had already attracted the interest of 104 other Australian locations and the company had received requests for trials from the US, the UK, the Middle East, South Africa, the Indian subcontinent, South East Asia and China.
Mr Dobbins said TMI was in talks with major telecommunications providers and also in the process of concluding a major commercial contract with a national media organisation in regard to NEXiposter access.
“We have now reached the stage where a large part of our technology is ready to commercialise,” he said.
“We are seeking more venture capital – probably from overseas. I personally have very little faith in Australian venture capitalists.”
Mr Dobbins said the company would eventually seek an ASX listing as part of an ongoing business plan and seek an initial public offering in each country it establishes a base.
Mr Dobbins said the system was cost effective with city councils able to recover costs by allowing large corporations, small business and local communities to use NEXiposters for advertising.