ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 25, 1999--
New Venture Targets Need for High Speed Mobile Access Solution
With Ease of Connection and High Level Security;
Management Team Includes Industry Experts Dory Leifer, David Carson
and Allan Rubens
Entering the dynamic network access equipment market, PublicPort,
Inc. was recently launched, with an impressive management team and
plans for product roll-out in the first half of 1999. Founding
PublicPort are Dory E. Leifer, President, David J. Carson, Vice
President and COO, and Allan Rubens, Chief Technology Officer.
PublicPort's products enable the deployment of public ports which
provide mobile users quick, secure access to high-speed network
connections. Public ports will be deployed in corporate branch
offices, hotel rooms, conference centers, airport lounges or other
public settings.
Demand for high speed Internet access with ease of connection and
security has started to appear, fueled by the explosive growth of
mobile users. Additionally, there is strong demand from residential
and business property owners who would like to offer high-speed
Internet access to residents and businesses but need to offer total
security and a way to handle accounting and billing.
"This is a milestone in network access," stated Dory Leifer,
PublicPort President. "LANs have always been fast and economical but
they only work well when you have network administration and trust
between users. Our goal is to turn the LAN into something that is
secure and robust even without administration. When a user with a
laptop finds a public port, they can feel safe plugging in. The
network owner gets accounting and authentication at a port level
instead of a pile of headaches with DHCP servers, complicated client
configurations and security risks with broadcast LANs."
"Our initial trials, in corporate, apartment, university, and
Internet cafe settings, have all beenvery successful," noted Leifer.
"Everyone is a winner in the case of housing complexes and
hotels," Leifer explains. "The dweller gets high-speed access, the
management offers attractive services, and both the management and an
ISP can split the revenue." Leifer continues, "Many property owners
are figuring out how to build-in the Internet just like plumbing -
we're making the water meters and valves to make this a reality for
everyone."
PublicPort's strong management team brings together market
knowledge, technical expertise, and experience building a networking
equipment company from the ground up.
Dory Leifer is an expert in wide area communications. His
previous firm, DEL Communications, has been retained by Ascend
Communications (Nasdaq:ASND.O) the past two years to provide technical
and marketing assistance in the area of Virtual Private Networks
(VPNs). He has also consulted with several RBOCs and is a well-known
instructor at Networld+Interop, teaching a seminar on remote access
networking. Leifer has been working with real estate developers during
the past two years designing Internet-connected communities.
David Carson was a co-founder in 1991 of Network Express, an
international networking hardware company, which Carson was
instrumental in building from the ground up. Mr. Carson was Vice
President of Corporate Development, responsible for market
establishment with carriers and enterprise customers in Japan, Europe
and the United States. Network Express was listed on the NASDAQ in
1995 and acquired by Cabletron Systems (NYSE:CS.N) in 1996 for
$110 million. David Carson left his post as Director of Advanced
Access at Cabletron in October 1998 to co-found PublicPort.
Allan Rubens has been a Principal Researcher working on packet
networks since 1974. He began his career by creating the architecture
of the operational software for custom routers for the historical
Merit Network. In addition to working for Merit, he has been with DEL
Communications Consulting since 1996. His achievements include
co-authoring the specifications for RADIUS, the most commonly used
authentication system by ISPs and design and development of the core
components of gated, which is the second highest installed base of
routing software behind Cisco's IOS (Nasdaq:CSCO.O) . Gated is used by
Ascend Communications (Nasdaq:ASND), Alcatel (NYSE:ALA.N), Sun
Microsystems (Nasdaq:SUNW), Newbridge Networks (NYSE:NN.N), IBM
(NYSE:IBM.N), and YAGO (now part of Cabletron, NYSE:CS)
"The existing mobile access solutions hinder productivity by
forcing a user to rely on a slow dial-in connection to an ISP or
corporate modem bank. This creates headaches for the IT staff who have
to maintain the modem banks and access routers, not to mention long
distance phone charges," comments David Carson, vice president and
COO. "The power of the Web is de facto unavailable to mobile users."
PublicPort's products overcome current problems in mobile access
by offering the benefits of:
-0-
*T
- Security -- the LAN is protected from the user and the user is
protected from other users on the network.
- Hands free configuration -- no software or special laptop or port
configuration needed.
- Flexible authentication, billing, and accounting.
- "Web Upfront" interface which opens up the option for advertising
and other content customized to the user.
*T
PublicPort is a pioneering provider of networking solutions for
mobile users, and users in settings such as hotels, airports,
apartment complexes and universities, who need easy, secure high-speed
access to the Internet. Built on standards-based Ethernet technology,
PublicPort's systems deliver fast, secure connectivity and the
opportunity to generate new revenue streams by billing for the access
and placing advertising on their Web Upfront interface. For more
information about PublicPort and its products, please visit the
PublicPort Web site at www.publicport.com.
--30--slb/clv*
CONTACT: PublicPort, Inc., Ann Arbor
David Carson, 734/665-1901
Fax: 734/669-4480
carson@publicport.com
E-mail: info@publicport.com.
KEYWORD: MICHIGAN
INDUSTRY KEYWORD: COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS COMED
INTERACTIVE/MULTIMEDIA/INTERNET TELECOMMUNICATIONS PRODUCT
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