Studies show that security issues are the main factors in holding companies back from rolling out full access for mobile phones users. So far the risks have been considered greater than the revenue. Meanwhile, mobile users tend to use not only mobile phones for access, but they move between networks and client types. Unified mobile access is not a vision of the future, it is in high demand already today. By 2011, there will be 247 million users using security products on their mobile phones.
Innovative vision
Operators can enhance their offerings with functions such as secure access to e-mail, calendar sync and intranet access, without having to give away revenue or their brands to a third party. AppGate creates an opportunity to build a secure and unified access solution for operators, letting them use their own brands and telephones. AppGate Secure Mobile Office sets up a real secure VPN tunnel between the user’s mobile phone and the operator and between the operator and the customer’s gateway. To achieve this, three different parts are used: SERVERS placed at the operator, a SATELLITE installed at the customer site and a native code CLIENT installed on the user’s mobile phone.
The solution
When the customer has decided to sign up for a subscription to the service, the operator delivers a preconfigured Mobility Gateway, a small box with no GUI or moving parts, to the customer’s premises. Its sole task is to relay selected data to and from the customer’s network, encrypt it and send it to the operator’s AppGate servers. An SMS message is sent to the user’s phone, containing a link the user can click on to download the application needed for maintaining security and access. The received application is automatically installed and with a few button presses, the user is online.
The system has built-in support for roaming and the phone client automatically reconnects to the system after a network failure with no need for the user to log in again. It is even possible to move between networks without having to log in again and it is possible to change the IP-address as well. All in a secure manner.
The innovator
AppGate Network Security is based in Sweden
Website: http://www.appgate.com Tel: +46 31 7774 43 50 - goran.marby [at] appgate.com
