BURLINGTON, Mass. - June 13, 2005 - Bluesocket, Inc., (www.bluesocket.com ) the leader in open wireless security and management solutions, today announced that Missouri Southern State University in Joplin, Missouri, has installed the BlueSecure 5000 Controller to secure its campus-wide wireless network.
When the University decided that wireless was the optimal solution for a campus-wide network, authentication of identities was crucial because of the school's federal mandate to protect student identities. "We needed the ability to track who was on the network," said Al Stadler, Network Administrator, Information Services for Missouri Southern State University. "Because the user logs into the Bluesocket system immediately on the first screen, authentication is seamless to the user."
The BlueSecure 5000 Controller manages 80 Foundry Access Points giving more than 5,300 students and 450 faculty and staff access to the wireless network. This diverse population means the system needs to accommodate multiple operating environments, such as Linux and Mac-OS. Seven buildings are currently set up for wireless and eleven more will be connected by the end of summer. In addition, the University has hot spots in three auditoriums so they can accommodate outside speakers, as well as the Student Center. The staff has intentions of covering the outdoor areas in the future.
"We did a lot of site surveying testing different buildings - up on a ladder," said Stadler. "All of our buildings are concrete and steel, so signal strength was an issue. We brought in a lot of WLAN vendors to do on-site tests. There were a wide variety of results."
"We spent a lot of time researching WLAN technology and made sure this product was the right thing," said Steve Earney, Assistant Vice President Information Services for Missouri Southern State University. "We spent the up-front time making sure we were choosing the right solution."
Utilizing Bluesocket's Secure Mobility® technology for wireless data and voice applications, BlueSecure Controllers provide high-performance, reliable, policy-based wireless local area network (WLAN) security and management solutions that have been deployed by thousands of large institutions, enterprises, healthcare and public access providers.
"Our Bluesocket system went live in January," said Stadler. "We had a demo unit at first - a BlueSecure 2100 Controller - and when we received the 5000 Controller, it took just 10 minutes to swap out - very simple and easy to use. In the future we would like to add another for redundancy and load balancing."
As a NCAA Division II school, athletics plays a big role in campus life. "We even put wireless in the gyms so our local sports writers can have user names and passwords," said Earney. "And, students can work on assignments between games if they want to."
"Bluesocket is working out extremely well," he continued. "Without it we would not have felt comfortable moving to wireless."
Missouri Southern State University is a state-supported university offering programs leading to the bachelor's degree as well as continuing education courses and a number of two-year programs in technical and vocational areas. MSSU's commitment to the liberal arts is reflected in a comprehensive program of general education requirements for all students to ensure that they have a breadth of educational experiences which will enable them to develop communication and critical thinking skills and to acquire and apply aesthetic, contemporary, civic, international, historical, mathematical, scientific and value-oriented perspectives.
About Bluesocket, Inc.
Founded in 1999, Bluesocket is the leader in open wireless security and management solutions that simplify the complexities of mobile enterprises. Thousands of BlueSecure Controllers are deployed by leading enterprises including Harvard University, Honeywell, Universal Health Services, Toyota, Parker Hannifin and others who require policy-based, open-systems solutions to secure, manage, and profit from their wireless networks. (www.bluesocket.com).
Bluesocket, the Bluesocket logo and BlueSecure are trademarks or registered trademarks of Bluesocket, Inc. All other trademarks, trade names and company names referenced herein are used for identification only and are the property of their respective companies.
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