ARUBA NETWORKS TURNS UP THE VOLUME ON VO-FI

New Phase Two Enterprise Fixed-Mobile Convergence Features Deliver Unprecedented Scale, Quality and Performance to Standard Vo-Fi Clients

Sunnyvale, Calif. November 06, 2006 - Aruba Networks, the Mobile Edge Company, today announced several major new features and product enhancements designed to further strengthen Aruba's already industry-leading Voice over Wi-Fi (Vo-Fi) performance and capabilities. Compliant with standards and Wi-Fi Alliance specifications, Aruba's new features move beyond the baseline requirements, addressing the real-world needs of today's most advanced Vo-Fi networks and solidifying the scalability, performance and manageability required before enterprises migrate to dual-mode/fixed-mobile convergence implementations. The addition of these features is the second of a five-phase plan for Aruba to bring Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) to enterprise networks. (See companion release, "Aruba Networks Unveils Plan for Enterprise Fixed-Mobile Convergence")

The features cover all factors driving Vo-Fi service, scale, and quality including:

• Improved Quality of Service (QoS) - Full implementation of the WMM specification, plus additional enhancements, ensure consistency between the QoS level and traffic type and permit adjustments to the QoS level as appropriate, delivering voice packets within acceptable delay, jitter and loss parameters. The stateful firewall in Aruba's mobility controllers enables a "trust, but verify" model that precludes misbehaving clients from obtaining a higher-than-appropriate priority for their traffic.
• Increased Call Capacity - New features and enhancements, including full support for the TSpec protocol, allow increased control over the number of active voice calls on an access point (AP) at any given time, assuring bandwidth availability and better call quality, even as voice clients roam between APs. Aruba has implemented an algorithm that enables completely accurate call counts to prevent near-simultaneous call attempts from overloading an AP.
• Faster Handover - Opportunistic Key Caching (OKC) for WPA2, as well as WPA, clients saves considerable authentication time and reduces call interruption when a client roams or hands over from one AP to a neighboring AP. Clients implementing these features have shown consistent handoff times of less than 8 milliseconds on the Aruba infrastructure.
• Extended Battery Life - Full network-side implementation of WMM-PS, a Wi-Fi Alliance certification based on the IEEE 802.11e U-APSD standard, and several enhancements provide three to five times greater battery life for dual-mode handsets. In addition to WMM-PS, Aruba is implementing proxy ARP, multicast filtering, and a new capability called "battery boost" to extend sleep times and reduce unnecessary battery-draining traffic to clients. These features increase talk time up to more than 4 hours and standby time in excess of 100 hours.

Significantly, all of the newly announced features work with 802.11 standards-based clients. No client-based modifications or vendor-specific implementations - such as the CCX client extensions required by Cisco - are required to deliver QoS and other advanced capabilities. Support for open standards assures customers interoperable, best-of-breed solutions and advanced functionality without locking them into proprietary implementations.

"The new features were developed based on direct customer requests," said Peter Thornycroft, product manager for Aruba Networks. "It's noteworthy that most of the requested features focus on the areas of scalability and management, a reflection that the mechanics of carrying high-quality voice have reached a high enough level that these customers are now expanding their voice deployments from the hundreds to the thousands of clients. The next stage will be a move to dual-mode handsets and fixed-mobile convergence, providing enterprises with even greater mobility."

A large number of Aruba customers have implemented Vo-Fi on their WLANs, realizing significant additional benefits in the areas of cost savings and increased productivity. The largest and most advanced Vo-Fi installations at present can be found in Japan. Aruba customer NTT Data Corporation, Japan's top system integrator and a widely-recognized global IT industry leader and innovator, is in the midst of a company-wide Vo-Fi rollout that will comprise several thousand dual-mode handsets, likely the largest Vo-Fi implementation in the world.

"We tested several leading vendors' WLAN and mobility solutions evaluating security, scalability, manageability and Vo-Fi support. In planning for one of the world's largest Vo-Fi deployments, we gave particular attention to advanced voice features such as Call Admission Control, fast roaming and scalability," said Mitsuaki Suzuki, senior manager, Network Integration Service Unit, Business Solutions Sector for NTT Data. "Aruba's Mobile Edge solution came out on top, outperforming competing products and surpassing our requirements. Since their selection, Aruba has worked closely with us to develop and implement the new features and capabilities that a network as complex as ours requires."

In the United States, single-mode Vo-Fi solutions are being deployed on a large scale in key vertical markets, including healthcare. Aruba customer WakeMed Health and Hospitals is an 850-bed hospital in North Carolina where over 650 SpectraLink handsets have been deployed for nurse call applications. "It's easy to find many vendors that claim voice expertise over wireless networks, but we needed to be convinced beyond the hype. Vo-Fi is a critical requirement for delivering quality patient care and it was mandatory that any solution that we selected could scale to our needs and satisfy our end users," said John Tuman, director of network services for WakeMed. "We performed a competitive bake-off with all major centralized WLAN vendors and Aruba was the only vendor that could perform to our scale."

Several Aruba integrators and service providers are also delivering Vo-Fi services for clients and within their own organizations. Aruba customer and partner Uniadex has been building their own 700-plus client Vo-Fi network since late 2004. "Aruba's Mobile Edge solution and advanced capabilities have enabled us to successfully penetrate the Vo-Fi market in Japan," said Shuichi Takahashi, general manager, Wireless IPC Business, Strategic Business Division for Uniadex in Japan. Uniadex, a subsidiary of Nihon Unisys Group, is a professional IT services and solutions company with 200 offices in Japan and international service networks in over 100 countries. "The latest set of enhancements will allow us to take our customers' Vo-Fi implementations to new levels, providing the quality and scalability necessary to support an entire enterprise."

About Aruba Networks

Aruba Networks is a fast-growing enterprise infrastructure company enabling the Mobile Edge, an evolutionary network architecture that represents a new approach to transitioning enterprise networks from a fixed, port-based architecture to an architecture centered on secure, identity-based mobility. The Mobile Edge simultaneously delivers mobile data and VoIP services, as well as a common user experience to mobile workers in the office, at home and on the road, by creating a secure mobility overlay that spans the LAN, the WAN and the Internet. To deliver the Mobile Edge, Aruba manufactures and markets a complete line of fixed and modular mobility controllers, wired and wireless access points, an advanced mobility software suite, and a mobility management system. Privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California, Aruba has operations in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, and employs staff around the world. To learn more, visit Aruba at http://www.arubanetworks.com.

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Media Contacts

Don Reckles
Aruba Networks, Inc.
408-329-5108
dreckles@arubanetworks.com

Jay Nichols
Sterling Communications, Inc.
415-392-2300
jnichols@sterlingpr.com

Aruba Networks and Aruba The Mobile Edge Company are trademarks of Aruba Wireless Networks, Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective holders. Portions © 2006 Aruba Wireless Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Specifications are subject to change without notice.