Roving Planet Releases First Engine for Managing Large-Scale Wireless Local Area Networks

Roving Planet announced last Thursday the release of CSD Engine (Central Site Director), the first product that allows thousands of people to simultaneously use multiple applicaitons on a single wireless local area network (WLAN) in a secure environment, without redundant hardware. Roving Planet has signed a letter of intent (LOI) agreement with Concourse Communicaitons to pilot test the CSD Engine in the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport.

   The Roving Planet CSD Engine partitions the wireless LAN between applications, so that hundreds of applications can run on the same network. It allows users to access the Internet through the wireless LAN, and simultaneously use many other time-saving applications, such as workflow, inventory management, customer service and instant messaging.

   We built the CSD Engine to be the traffic cop of the wireless world. High priority messages get through first," explains Seth Goldhammer, Roving Planets CTO. The Roving Planet CSD Engine sends messages where they need to go and blocks messages that aren't allowed."

   The Roving Planet CSD Engine is a critical element in any complex, large-scale wireless LAN deployment, such as those in airports, hotels and other public spaces. Airports are currently deploying the largest wireless LANs in the world.

   Roving Planet has recently signed a letter of intent with Concourse Communications to join their Airport Access (sm) wireless LAN data trial in the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. Concourse Communications has the contract to manage wireless systems and services within the airport. Dick Snyder, Senior Vice President of Business Development for Concourse said, We chose to evaluate Roving Planets CSD Engine because it makes it possible to establish a common, secure wireless network for all of the tenants in the airport. It could make the wireless network more valuable for the whole airport community."

The Roving Planet CSD Engine Difference
   The Roving Planet CSD Engine partitions the wireless LAN at the application level instead of the physical, hardware level. It works with any application to ensure messages are sent to the proper, registered users through any access point, rather than creating segmentations like routers or blocking certain traffic like firewalls," explains Seth Goldhammer, Those solutions do not fix the problem of running multiple applications on a Wireless LAN. That is a unique problem that requires a unique solution, and we developed the Roving Planet CSD Engine to be that solution."

   The Roving Planet CSD Engine also provides the highest level of security for applications on the network through its proprietary security module. Security is a focus for our company. Every user cares about protecting their critical data and applications, but airports have special security needs right now," said Kaj Gronholm, Roving Planets CEO.

   Development of the Roving Planet CSD Engine (formerly called Eclipse Engine) was completed in October 2001, and it is now available to qualified customers for pilot testing.

About Roving Planet
Roving Planet designs innovative middleware to allow network owners to maximize the value of their wireless real estate. The Roving Planet CSD Engine manages multiple applications running over a single proximity-based wireless network in a corporate environment or a public space. With Roving Planet, companies can build a unified wireless network and use it for everything from customer service to messaging to operations. Learn more at www.rovingplanet.com.

About Concourse Communications
Concourse Communications is the leading developer of neutral-host wireless access systems in airports and other transportation-related venues. These systems support wireless voice, data and video services offered by commercial wireless service providers, airport operators, and their airline tenants. Concourse is installing neutral-host systems in Newark, JFK, LaGuardia, Detroit and the Minneapolis/St. Paul airports. They recently signed an Agreement with iPass, Inc., which allows for the creation of an open-architecture Wireless LAN system for use in public hotspots such as airports.