IBM and WiMAX equipment vendor Alvarion said Wednesday they would team to sell wireless broadband networks to municipal public safety agencies.

The companies said in a statement that the partnership arose from a pilot program they developed for the Fresno, California police department. Their offering will combine IBM mobile applications such as WebSphere Everyplace Connection Manager and Alvarion's wireless broadband systems. The companies claimed that their collaboration will result in citywide wireless broadband for public safety uses that costs less than similar systems.

The Fresno system enables offers to sent text messages, still images and video via terminals from moving squad cards and also via PDAs. The vendors claimed that the system makes police offers more productive.

Alvarion said that, while the new Fresno system operates at 900 Mhz, it is compatible with the police department's older 800 Mhz wireless narrowband network.

"The Fresno project serves as an example of how this technology can solve real problems that impact public safety's ability to respond that may even save lives and improve livability for communities," Michael Dillon, IBM's director of safety, security and community broadband, said in a statement.