Within just a few months, Bowling Green firefighters will be able to pull up floor plans of burning buildings at the scene, and police could file reports from their cruisers, giving them less time at a desk and more on the street.

A long-planned wireless network for police and firefighters will go up in the wake of city commissioners' approval Tuesday of just more than $1 million spending for the project.

Bowling Green Municipal Utilities, the city's Internet service provider, will get $265,580 for hanging Cisco boxes around town, connection to the utility's fiber-optic network, maintenance fees and monthly network access fees.

“What we're going to be doing is hanging wireless access points on BGMU poles,” said Steve Milam, city network engineer.

BGMU may start installing them by Oct. 1, and could be done by the end of the year, he said.

It's being done at one-seventh to one-tenth the cost private contractors proposed charging for the work, Milam said.

The boxes themselves are being bought from Sentinel Technologies of Downers Grove, Ill., for $800,798.

Many police cars and fire trucks already have the necessary computer terminals, and more are being installed; in August 2006, the state approved a $718,498.40 grant to 17 regional law enforcement agencies - of which Bowling Green received $206,135 - to buy in-car computers. The entire grant should have been enough to buy 700 terminals, according to the state.

Background work on the project has been going on for two years, according to city Chief Information Officer Lynn Hartley. Former police chief Bill Waltrip and former fire chief Gerry Brown supported it, he said.

City Manager Kevin DeFebbo said that the city, BGMU, police and fire departments have been testing the system in a small area between Steak & Shake and the Bowling Green/Warren County Airport for several months. That area contains more than 100 other wi-fi signals, but even so, the network has had 95 percent reliability, Milam said.

The planned network will cover almost everything within the city limits, with three outlying exceptions: the Kentucky TriModal Transpark, Olde Stone, and the South Industrial Park, according to a map Milam showed commissioners.

Commissioners asked whether other cities are using similar networks, and who gets to use them. Milam said about 20 cities, mostly larger than Bowling Green, have such networks for public safety employees. Some allow greater access; here, city code inspectors may be able to use it, too.

“We are not designing the network for the public,” Milam said.

Still, that's an idea that remains on the table; commissioners, especially Brian Strow, expressed some interest in exploring it. Downtown Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Cheryl Blaine has said she'd like to see a wireless umbrella for the public over Circus Square Park, which is now being built.

Even if the network was opened to public use, it wouldn't necessarily compete with indoor wireless service offered by private businesses, Milam said.

“Understand that we are building an outdoor network,” he said. “This technology does not penetrate buildings very well at all.”