iPass Unifies Enterprise Wi-Fi Roaming
Roaming between public hotspots, home broadband networks and corporate campus WLANs becomes much easier for mobile workforces and the IT departments that support them with the announcement today of iPass
Wireless LAN RoamingTM from iPass Inc.An extension to the iPass Corporate AccessTM service, this new offering utilises the functionality in iPass’ award-winning iPassConnect(tm) service interface and the flexibility of the iPass virtual network platfo
rm to combine hundreds of disparate networks into a single integrated service.
According to industry analyst IDC, about 42% of notebooks will ship Wi-Fi enabled this year, and by 2007, 98% will be Wi-Fi enabled. The availability of Wi-Fi enabled notebook computers, the need for mobile computing inside the office and dropping prices in enterprise-grade WLAN access points are making enterprise deployment of Wi-Fi on corporate campuses more compelling. However, to realise the potential of WLANs to increase enterprise productivity, IT departments must be able to give workers Wi-Fi
access without increasing IT help desk support costs, complicating IT management, or opening up the corporate network to new security threats.
With the addition of iPass Wireless LAN Roaming, the iPass Corporate Access service helps IT departments overcome these challenges by delivering an easy-to-use, policy-based, centrally managed solution that integrates an organisation’s wireless LAN, the
iPass global virtual network, and employee home broadband and Wi-Fi networks into a single unified enterprise connectivity service.
Using iPass Wireless LAN Roaming also helps keep the total cost of managing and operating a unified Wi-Fi network under control. A simple update which occurs during a user connection is all that is required to deploy the iPass Wireless LAN Roaming service, taking advantage of centralised management capabilities inherent in iPass technology. iPass Wireless LAN Roaming extends into the corporate office environment the ease-of-use of iPassConnect, shown to have significantly reduced help desk and training costs for many iPass customers.
“Wireless LAN technologies can offer a great deal of value to end-users, but they can also create serious management and security concerns for the IT departments charged with supporting these users.” said Keith Waryas
, research manager for IDC’s Wireless Business Network Services. “As corporations continue to roll out private WLAN networks for wireless on-campus connectivity, the perceived lines separating in-building and out-of-building connectivity will blur. A major value of services, like iPass Wireless LAN Roaming, is the ability to take these different connectivity media and give users a consistent, intuitive, and network-agnostic interface on the front end to enable increased productivi
ty, while giving IT professionals a robust, centralised platform that can be used to easily manage security, authentication and access policies as well as control the cost of operating across a multitude of public and private networks.”
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