Belleville Police Service requested $49,000 in the 2026 Belleville Capital Budget to replace 60x 3 year old Samsung S23+ phones used as Mobile Data Terminal in police cars with new ones that have a reported useful life of 5 years:
Rationale given
Replacement of the current s23+ fleet of phones. The phones are used as the computer terminal in the car and are a critical requirement used by officers daily. Devices will include new cases and screen protectors. Project will also include updated phone docks in vehicle.
Fleet of 120 phones replaced January 2020, early 2023 and again in 2026
According to the 2023 BPS Capital Budget, smartphones were purchased in January 2020.
120 were replaced in the 2023 Capital Budget after 3 1/4 years of service for $38,160. According to the IT Unit’s 2024 Annual Report presented at the April 2025 meeting, 120 new Samsung S23+ devices were rolled out to sworn and select civilian staff, along with updated vehicle docking stations to support the new hardware. Given that the S23+ model was released in 2023, these devices will be under three years old by the time of the proposed replacement.
Half of the fleet (60) will be replaced for $48,845 in the 2026 Capital Budget after 3 years of service.
Belleville Police Services Board says a 2 to 3 year lifecycle for smartphones is typical practice
The Belleville Police Service’s IT Unit commenced the replacement of approximately 120 smartphones with the Samsung s23+ in late 2023 with completion in early 2024. The Samsung phones are not only used as an officer smartphone, but are used as the MDT [Mobile Data Terminal] in the vehicle to monitor and respond to the 911 event queue, run queries, run the in car camera technologies, issue electronic tickets, create officer e-notes, and a variety of other tasks. At the time of ordering, the Samsung s23+ was the latest model available.
The phones will be replaced again in late 2026, early 2027 after 3 full years of service. The first batch of 60 will be for front line officers, and then the remaining devices to follow. At that time, they will be replaced with Samsung’s latest smartphone model.
Belleville Police Services Board assistant on behalf of the Chair
The Belleville Police Service has always had a rotation / renewal cycle of 3 years for the fleet of smartphones used by staff.
Over a lifecycle of 3 full years of service, we begin to see a degradation in battery life (ie, the battery can not sustain a full day), damage to screen protectors or glass, and / or wear to the charging port. The wear to the charging port has increased with the last 2 cycles of phones, as officers frequently dock and remove their phone into the in-vehicle DeX (desktop experience) solution we utilize here at Belleville Police Service.
When we renew the fleet of phones, the old phones are factory wiped by the IT team, then sent to a recycling company that professionally wipes the phone again, provides a device wipe verification report, then assesses the value of the phone (based on condition of phone), and provides the Belleville Police Service payment for the used devices. That payment is recorded as revenue in the operating budget.
In consultation with some other police services across Ontario, a renewal cycle of 2 to 3 years for smartphones is typical practice.
Background
The Belleville Police Service (BPS) was the first Canadian police department to utilize [Samsung DeX] built into their smartphones to improve their operations.
During the 2026 Capital Budget meeting, Councillor Carr asked Chief of Police Murray Rodd about the replacement of the phones:
There’s listed here for smartphones and it looks like you are asking to replace the Samsung S23 Plus phones. Now they were just released in February of 2023. Are they already in need of replacement?
Councillor Carr
Our phones act like the CPU for the for the in-car technologies as and everything that goes through that, as well as as a mobile device. They’re docked or in use fulltime 12 hours and battery issues and capacity issues are the issues. So we can’t have those fail. They’re individual pieces of kit and so we’re being proactive. They rolled out on a different scale or program and we’re trying just to be proactive so that we don’t have points of failure. So the front line will be getting them first, and then they’ll go to other support units, then to the civilians.
Chief of Police Murray Rodd
Okay. So you said it’s the main CPU. What’s in the cruisers in terms of what the officers utilize for search for notes? Is there iPads, or?
Councillor Carr
No, we have nothing – everything is a dumb terminal with a screen small screen, but the technology is all driven through the phone.
Chief of Police Murray Rodd
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