The County of San Diego Prison System has created an ISDN videoconferencing network using a $1.1m grant awarded by the California Air Pollution Control District, which offered the cash because the system will help to cut harmful car emissions. This is because two of San Diego’s prisons are situated at opposite ends of the county, with an average round trip time of one and a half hours. The Prison System estimates that its employees will save more than 25,000 round trips, 1.75m miles of driving each year, improving both employee efficiency and reducing air pollution. It created an ISDN videoconferencing network by expanding its ISDNX multi-service backbone network from Network Equipment Technologies Inc by adding $100,000 of ISDNX boards. These boards enable videoconferencing equipment to communicate intelligently with the network and are located both at the backbone end and the site where the video conference set-up is. The Prison System has bought multiple videoconferencing systems from PictureTel Corp for i nstallation in two jails and some probation and public defenders’ offices, making a total of five sites. The network enables probation officers and public defenders to meet face to face with inmates without leaving the office. The backbone network previously just handled voice and local networking traffic. The next application to be migrated onto the backbone will be to let judges hear initial charges against defendants remotely.
