Verizon adds wireless LAN to global managed services

Verizon Business today unveiled a new global service designed to help its large business customers manage campus-wide or building-wide wireless data networks. The new Managed Wireless LAN (MWLAN) service uses Unified Wireless Network technology from Cisco Systems.

“This service dovetails very nicely with rest of our global managed service portfolio,” said Chip Freund, director of managed service product marketing for Verizon Business. “It is targeted at multinational companies to enable them to take advantage of all of the intrinsic benefits of a wireless office or campus but not have to acquire the expertise to make that happen.”

The wireless approach to networking enables corporations to boost productivity by allowing workers to connect to the corporate LAN anywhere within an office building or campus and not just at their desks, facilitating collaboration, Freund said. Wireless networking also allows companies to expand the reach of their LANs and add users more easily, without the expense and complication of additional wiring, Freund said.

“Employees can connect from conference rooms and other locations,” Freund said. “And this represents an easier, less expensive way to refresh a campus infrastructure.”

As part of the managed service, Verizon will design, install and manage the network, including providing professional services, and will secure access to the network and provide ongoing monitoring of that security against hackers and unauthorized users.

“If there are rogue access points set up, we can detect those and inform the customer,” Freund said. “The Cisco platform uses a controller-based environment with a centralized controller model that controls remote wireless access points or thin access points because they don’t have a lot of intelligence. That gives us the flexibility to expand and add users to the system. Overlaid on top of that is the ability to do monitor the radio waves, so we can detect if someone is trying to hack in or set up a wireless access point of their own in their own office. We can shut them down or notify our customers.”

Verizon has been offering a wireless LAN service since 2006, using Aruba Networks’ MWLAN technology. Freund said the Aruba system will still be available in the US, but the global offering will be based on the Cisco technology, which will also now be available to US customers.

“We have extensive experience with wireless,” Freund said. “This is an opportunity to embrace a partnership with Cisco on a global basis. We are driving for global availability and global consistency based on market drivers and priorities. Aruba has had great success in the US, but customers outside the US don’t know Aruba like they know Cisco and the level of comfort there.”