Reef Point Systems has developed a massively scalable, multiservice UMA Security Gateway, providing comprehensive security for Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) network, the company says.. Unlike other solutions, such as session border controllers, the Reef Point solution is massively scalable, securing up to half a million simultaneous connections. The gateway enables secure WiFi roaming and provides subscribers with confidentiality by encapsulating the call and signaling data in secure IPSec tunnels.

"With so many new security threats potentially plaguing wireless operators today, relying on just traffic management to protect their network and services is no longer enough. What operators need are extremely scalable, comprehensive, carrier-class security capabilities built right into the network to make certain new services such as Voice-over-IP calls are safe and confidential,"  said Roger Entner, vice president of wireless telecom at Ovum.

By deploying UMA technology, operators can enable users to roam and handover between cellular networks and public and private unlicensed wireless networks (WiFi and Bluetooth). The user, equipped with a dualmode cellular/WLAN handset, can make calls across any generic wireless LAN and IP network, with the call and signaling data encapsulated in secure IP tunnels. These tunnels encrypt data ensuring privacy for voice calls over the public Internet. Mobile operators view UMA as a cost-effective method to improve residential coverage and keep churn down with minimal infrastructure
investments.

"UMA is a pre-cursor to IMS networks and enables operators to easily expand their coverage and introduce new mobile data services. More than 10 operators worldwide have already announced their intent to deploy UMA technology," said Stephen Diamond, CEO of Reef Point Systems. "These new services will not be widely adopted if there is a threat to the availability or integrity of the service. Reef Point offers a complete security solution and understands that these new services are critical to operators' profitability. "

The Reef Point UMA Security Gateway features:

· Massive Scalability - The Reef Point solution supports up to half a
million simultaneous IPsec connections; significantly reducing capital and
operating costs.

· Comprehensive Multiservice Security - The gateway provides robust threat
defense including stateful firewalls with Denial of Service attack
prevention, intrusion detection services, custom firewall filtering, dynamic
virtual routing with Network Address Translation, and session limiting to
protect against external threats.

· Purpose-built, Carrier-class Design - Uncompromising high-performance &
reliability is provided through Reef Point's patented Flow Application
Streaming TechnologyT and optimum mix of custom ASICs/FPGAs and network
processors.

· Robust Wireless Standards Support - Reef Point supports Internet Key
Exchange v2 (IKEv2) and Extensible Authentication Protocol Method for GSM
Subscriber Identity Modules (EAP-SIM) to provide scalable mutual
authentication, encryption and data integrity safeguards for signaling,
voice, and data