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Chantry Networks Brings Wireless Access to K-12 Public School District with 36,000 Students in 47 Schools
WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 6, 2004 -- Chantry Networks, the leading provider of secure integrated mobility management solutions for wireless networks has partnered with the Adams 12 Five Star School District (the District) in Colorado, which serves more than 36,000 students, faculty and staff throughout the 47 schools. The District has deployed Chantry's BeaconWorks(TM) wireless LAN to cost-effectively provide wireless connectivity and Internet access to the schools in the District, and to enable debit transactions in the schools' cafeterias, all with minimal maintenance and administrative costs.
After evaluating its current wireless network and competing solutions, the District determined that after the purchase of Chantry's BeaconMaster(TM) router, the purchase of BeaconPoint(TM) access points would be significantly less than the cost of other solutions that required "thick" access points.
The wireless initiative will provide role-based access to the Internet for users in classrooms throughout the District, and will also enable the use of networked mobile labs.
The new wireless network will also enable the Point of Sale (POS) units in the cafeterias and other lunch services to be fully wirelessly accessible. By enabling school 'debit card' transactions for lunches, the District aims to eliminate the problem of "forgotten lunch money." The debit card system's lack of reliance on cash means that students will no longer have to borrow money from teachers or fellow students for lunch, and parents will not need to worry about their forgetful children being unable to purchase lunch.
"Wireless in education should not be limited to colleges," said Tom Racca, vice president of marketing, Chantry Networks. "Innovative K-12 school systems can also realize tremendous learning benefits from greater Internet access, mobility and emerging technologies. In this case, the award-winning Adams 12 Five Star Schools has developed a wireless network that will provide a leg up to students, faculty and staff."
The Adams Twelve Five Star School District has deployed one BeaconMaster 1200 and 25 BeaconPoint access points. Over the next few months, the District will add additional BeaconPoints to extend the network to 100 access points. The new wireless network replaces costly and hard to maintain technology from Cisco, Apple, 3Com and AT&T/Lucent.
"K-12 school districts face a number of challenges when selecting and deploying wireless technologies," said Scott Friberg, Manager of Network Services for Adams 12 Five Star School District. "As a public district, we need to pick the best technology, from the most reliable vendor, with the most cost-effective approach to managing the system. Additionally, we have significant technology requirements - such as network traffic security and rogue device detection. After an extensive look at the solutions available on the market, Chantry Networks and its BeaconWorks wireless LAN proved the best solution for our requirements."
The BeaconWorks wireless network will:
- Bring wireless network connectivity and Internet access to computers in the classrooms throughout the District;
- Offer peace of mind that the wireless network is secure for children to use;
- Give the District the ability to segment the network by faculty, staff, and grades - thus assigning differing levels of access to different users based on what is appropriate;
- Facilitate wireless transactions in the cafeterias;
- Provide a centralized approach to managing the network, reducing the costly expenses associated with onsite maintenance for each and every access point.
BeaconWorks is a router-based fit (thin) access point architecture for more scalable and easily maintained wireless LANs. The solution consists of the BeaconMaster access controller with BeaconPoint access points. Embedded in BeaconWorks is Chantry's innovative VNSWorks technology that manages multiple virtual wireless networks over one physical wireless network. This technology provides yet one more cost effective approach to meeting the needs of wireless users. BeaconWorks is the only Layer 3 router certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance for 802.11 a/b/g compliance.
Chantry Networks is the leading provider of secure integrated mobility management solutions for wireless networks. Chantry's innovative WLAN suite of products, BeaconWorks, offers unprecedented scalability and availability, coupled with unique network virtualization features, to overcome the obstacles inherent in traditional WLAN systems and provide enterprises and service providers with the first economical and practical solution for building seamless and pervasive wireless networks. Founded in April of 2002, Chantry Networks is headquartered in Boston with offices in Chicago, Denver, New York, San Francisco, Toronto and Washington, D.C. Chantry is backed by top-tier investors including Flagship Ventures, Primaxis Technology Ventures, Siemens Venture Capital, Venture Coaches/Skypoint Capital and Ventures West. For more information on Chantry Networks visit www.chantrynetworks.com.
BeaconWorks, BeaconMaster, BeaconPoint and VNSWorks are trademarks of Chantry Networks, Inc.
Chantry Networks, Inc.
Sharon Cullina, 781-547-0062
scullina@chantrynetworks.com
or
SparkSource, Inc.
Matthew Card, 781-274-6061 x211
mcard@sparksource.com
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