Tropos Networks, a specialist in technology for public-safety networks, this week announced its largest installation to date – a Wi-Fi mesh network covering about 90% of Oklahoma City’s 621 square miles.

Tropos formed in 2004 and has 500 installations worldwide, mostly used in limited areas such as downtowns and ports. About half of the networks are used for public safety and the rest are designed for a variety of public service applications, CEO Tom Ayers said.

Networks can be hosted on-site, as is Oklahoma City’s, or at Tropos’ own data center in Sunnyvale, Calif., he said. Tropos is developing a series of municipal applications and has a proprietary best-practices wireless specification called TMCX.

Mark Meier, IT director of Oklahoma City, explained that a project first formed six years ago to upgrade the public safety system. The plans called for wireless communications across all of the city’s urban 235 square miles and 95% of the remaining suburban and rural areas. Applications include the ability to perform background checks and access closed-circuit television for police; location services and emergency data for the fire department; and the long-term possibility of opening the network for citizens’ use.

“It has exceeded expectations. The first couple of years were tough. A lot of the issues had nothing to do with wireless mesh; it had to do with the fact that the industry had not standardized. Middleware, there was not a whole lot available at the time,” Meier said.

There are not yet quantitative numbers available, but there are many stories about how the applications helped emergency workers save lives, he said. “We are expanding it every single day,” he added.

Meier’s advice for cities considering a similar network is simple: “First and foremost, stop looking for the silver bullet. Define what it is that you’re trying to accomplish,” he said. As for Tropos, “I’m anxiously waiting for them to move to the next level,” such as options for WiMAX integration, more efficient programming code and better use of the available bandwidth to fit more device connections, he noted.

Tropos’ Ayers said the previous largest installation was in Tuscon, Ariz., covering 230 square miles. That system featured video for emergency medical services, so that doctors could visually analyze a situation, along with a program for administering traffic lights.

Competitors includes BelAir Networks, Cisco Systems, Proxim Wireless and Strix Systems, Ayers said.