e-Learning for policing, intelligence and counter-terrorism: Performance

Online education for professionals in the policing, intelligence and counter-terrorism fields is problematic for several reasons: personnel are deployed in frequently changing locations; the confidentiality of the material being presented is critical; and the identity of and interactions between students may need to be restricted in various ways. In this paper, I examine whether ever-increasing wireless bandwidths (rather than CPU speed) can assist in the deployment of secure, mobile e-learning solutions for these students, by examining the effective bandwidth utilisation of a 1Gbps wireless network. Using Java and .NET prototypes, I determined that the mean effective bandwidth utilisation for simulated streamed media was 3.10 Mbps for Java, some 330 times smaller than the physical bandwidth available. The mean effective bandwidth utilisation was 12.39 Mbps for Visual C++ .NET, some 82.64 times smaller than the physical bandwidth available. I conclude that network bandwidth is not a limiting factor in deploying these solutions - even existing wireless networks of lesser bandwidth could be used effectively.