Firetide Announces HotPort High Performance Mesh Network

LOS GATOS, Calif. - February 28, 2005 - Firetide^TM Inc. announced the HotPort^TM high performance mesh network. The HotPort system allows standard voice, video and data applications to operate both indoors and outdoors over a high capacity wireless mesh backbone. The HotPort mesh network includes a new hardware platform, new mesh management software and advanced networking features that maximize performance, scalability, and ease of use.

"Capacity is the name of the game in any network today," said Craig J. Mathias, a Principal with the wireless and mobile advisory firm Farpoint Group (Ashland, MA). "With meshes now adopting roles that only a short time ago would have been unsuited to a wireless solution, it's great that Firetide is placing an emphasis on the key growth areas of voice and video, and in broadening the applications for meshes in general."

HotPort High Performance Mesh Network
The HotPort mesh network is a high performance wireless mesh backbone that supports multiple, simultaneous applications and services. It is designed especially for high-bandwidth/low latency applications such as video surveillance networks, voice over IP services, and metro-scale Wi-Fi HotZones. The self-configuring, self-healing mesh network scales quickly and easily, resulting in a powerful and reliable wireless network.

"Customers are asking for high performance multi-service networks in environments where Ethernet wiring or fiber cabling is too expensive or impossible to install." said Bo Larsson, CEO of Firetide "The HotPort system was designed for performance, scalability, and ease of use. It delivers performance up to 25 Mbps, can scale to cover very large geographical areas, and a fully operational mesh network can often be installed in just a few hours."

The HotPort system includes the HotPort 3000 series indoor and outdoor mesh nodes, HotView^TM; mesh management software, and enterprise class networking features including VLAN traffic segmentation, traffic prioritization, network gateway interconnects, and remote management.

HotPort 3000 Series Hardware
The HotPort 3000 series hardware is optimized for maximum speed on the mesh and at each location. In addition to providing fast transport between hops, each node features an integrated high-speed Ethernet switch for connecting standard Ethernet devices to the mesh as well as local line-rate switching up to 100 Mbps per port.

HotPort 3100 series indoor mesh nodes are plenum rated and have a built-in four port 10/100 Ethernet switch, a dual spectrum backhaul radio, and two dual spectrum omni-directional antennas.

HotPort 3200 series outdoor mesh nodes have weatherproof NEMA 4X enclosures, a built-in dual port 10/100 Ethernet switch supporting 802.3af Power over Ethernet, a dual spectrum backhaul radio, two omni-directional antennas, removable sun shield and a mounting bracket. Options include integrated battery backup and a solar panel with battery backup.

HotPort 3100 and 3200 nodes work seamlessly together between indoor and outdoor environments and can operate at 2.4 GHz for maximum capacity and range or at 5 GHz for maximum capacity and minimal interference.

Advanced Networking Capabilities
The HotPort Mesh network delivers advanced networking features to maximize performance, scalability, and security.

Network Gateway Interconnects provide efficient access to multiple external network services such as the Internet, resulting in high throughput and optimized transport of traffic though the mesh.
Support for virtual local area networks allows traffic to be separated into smaller groups and application specific LANs. Mesh performance can be increased by directing application specific traffic onto specific VLAN routes. The HotPort mesh supports 802.1q VLAN tagging of packets entering and exiting the mesh.
Traffic Prioritization enables three Ethernet Class of Service (CoS) levels to prioritize traffic on the mesh, ensuring that traffic requiring high throughput or continuous service, such as video and voice, take precedence over other forms of traffic. Ports on each node can be set to any priority level.
The HotPort mesh network includes several layers of security including packet filtering, 40 bit and 104 bit WEP and 128 and 256 bit AES key encryption.

HotView^TM Mesh Management Software
HotView mesh management software provides both live monitoring and remote management of HotPort mesh networks. The software has an intuitive graphical user interface and allows access to all mesh and individual node settings including security, VLAN, traffic prioritization, radio power controls, and network gateway interconnects. Live monitoring features include mesh statistics, node statistics, and a graphical view of active connections. Users can import graphics of floor plans or maps to show the physical location of HotPort nodes.

HotPort networks are ideal for video surveillance networks, Wi-Fi networks, and multi-service networks in environments such as hotels, airports, convention centers, municipalities, warehouses, and other campus environments where structured wiring such as Ethernet or fiber cabling is too difficult or costly to install.

"Hospitality environments and municipal HotZones represent two of the fastest growing segments of the wireless market. Both of these segments need to install Internet access at reasonable prices and without disrupting operations" said Kurt Bauer, President and CEO of Nomadix, the leading provider of public access Gateway solutions. "Firetide provides the easiest to use mesh networks and now, with their new HotPort products, they provide the best price/performance of any mesh vendor. This is exactly what our customers want."

HotPort high performance networks will be available on March 31, 2005. Firetide products are sold through channel partners including distributors, value added resellers (VARs), and systems integrators. For more information about HotPort products, please visit www.firetide.com.

About Firetide, Inc.
Firetide is a privately held wireless mesh technology company that develops networking equipment to deploy high performance, scalable wireless mesh networks quickly, easily and affordably. Firetide's Instant Networking solution is ideal for building backbone infrastructure for Wi-Fi networks, video surveillance, and temporary networks in a variety of environments, such as Internet access HotZones, airports, hotels, campus environments or other locations where wiring is too difficult or expensive to install. Investors include Menlo Ventures, HMS Ventures, Hawaiian Electric Industries, and Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners. For more information, visit the company's website at www.firetide.com.

2005 Firetide^TM, HotPort^TM, HotView^TM and Instant Mesh Networks^TM are trademarks of Firetide, Inc.