Bluesocket Ships WG-5000 Wireless Gateway.

Business Editors

Wi Fi Planet 2003

Booth No. 319

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 3, 2003

Empowers Large Enterprises to Run Secure Wi-Fi Networks

Supporting Thousands of Mobile Users, Hundreds of Access Points

Bluesocket, the leading vendor of open-systems Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) management and security solutions, today announced and shipped the WG-5000 Wireless Gateway, the company's fourth generation of Wireless Gateways, appliances to control WLANs in large enterprises.

Building on innovations derived from experience gained through delivering three generations of Wireless Gateways, and incorporating enhancements based on feedback from hundreds of customer deployments, Bluesocket's fourth-generation platform, the WG-5000 Wireless Gateway, is designed for deployment by large enterprises in heterogeneous network environments. The WG-5000's hardware features two 10/100/1000 Mbps Interfaces plus failover; optional 1000 Base-SX Fiber Interfaces and Solid State Storage. Raising the bar for Wi-Fi performance, the WG-5000 supports hundreds of Access Points, up to 1,000 concurrent users and high performance with 1Gbps unencrypted and 400 Mbps encrypted throughput. The new platform supports and optimizes Bluesocket's latest software for WiFi management and security--a proven solution that has received more awards than solutions from any other vendor in the industry.

"Bluesocket continues to maintain its position as the preferred platform large enterprises to control their heterogeneous wireless networks," said Eric Janszen, CEO, Bluesocket. "Leading companies have already deployed Bluesocket in their LAN infrastructures; organizations who need to accommodate thousands of mobile workers will find our WG-5000 Wireless Gateway an ideal system to centrally manage and secure wireless access throughout their enterprise facilities. On a cost-per-user basis, the WG-5000 is the most economical way to provision controlled wireless access in the enterprise today."

Designed for Policy Rollouts in Large Enterprise Deployments

The Bluesocket WG-5000 Wireless Gateway is a high performance, WLAN infrastructure platform typically deployed at the core or the distribution layer of the network, aggregating WLAN traffic from existing edge switches into the secure enterprise network. It allows enhanced policy-based WLAN deployments to control access, bandwidth and QoS, based on Role, Time, Location, Services or User.

High data density wireless deployments with thousands of mobile users such as residence hall networks (ResNet) on university campuses; large government and corporate buildings, and multi-building healthcare complexes will benefit from Bluesocket's latest WLAN solution.

"Our studies into end-user adoption of wireless LANs indicate some resistance from large enterprises, due to concerns not only about security but also the sheer complexity of managing wireless networking for a large mobile workforce," said Richard Webb, Directing Analyst, Wireless LANs, Infonetics Research. "Bluesocket's 4th-generation gateway is a timely and scaleable solution that addresses these concerns and will give large enterprises the confidence to move forward with wireless."

Traffic Aggregation from Hundreds of Access Points

Easily conforming into existing wired and wireless networks, the WG-5000 Wireless Gateway can manage and aggregate traffic from hundreds of Access Points--unlike many wireless switches which impose a physical limitation on directly connected APs based on the distance limitations of Ethernet. The WG-5000 provides network administrators the flexibility to roll out WLANs using their existing network switches routers and authentication servers without any forklift upgrades.

Secure Mobility MatriX(TM)

The Bluesocket WG-5000 Wireless Gateway solves wireless security and mobility concerns through Bluesocket's unique architecture, the Secure Mobility MatriX. Bluesocket's architecture allows users to roam across WLAN subnets, while maintaining a secure connection (WPA/802.1x, IPSec or PPTP), without the need to re-authenticate. In addition, the WG-5000 fits seamlessly into the MatriX architecture with existing Bluesocket products such as the WG-1100 and WG-2100 Wireless Gateways, allowing all Bluesocket Gateways to be managed from any single device installed within the MatriX.

About Bluesocket Wireless Gateways

Bluesocket's Wireless Gateways deliver an open-systems approach to secure and manage WiFi networks and provide authentication, Secure Mobility (TM), policy and bandwidth management through unparalleled interoperability with legacy infrastructure and WLAN standards.

Bluesocket Wireless Gateways have received numerous awards including 'Editors' Choice Award' (Communications News), 'Best Indoor/Campus Wireless' (TiECon 2003), 'Product of the Year' (Mass Telecomm Council), 'Best Security Product' (Networking Industry Awards), 'Readers' Choice Award' (InfoWorld), 'Best Product in Show' (N+I/Sydney) and 'Outstanding Product of the Year' (Channel Awards 2003).

About Bluesocket

Bluesocket, Inc. (www.bluesocket.com) is a leading manufacturer of systems to control and secure wireless local area networks (WLANs) in enterprises, institutions and public hotspots in 40 countries worldwide. Bluesocket provides hundreds of organizations including the National Security Agency, ATOS KPMG Consulting, Harvard Medical School and Best Western Hotels with an elegant open-systems solutions to secure, manage, and profit from their WLANs. With offices in North America, Europe and Asia, Bluesocket, Inc. is a private, global corporation managed by executives from BT, Cisco, GTE, Ericsson, Intel, NetScreen, Nortel; other industry leaders.