Today's a big day for the Sputnik team - we have officially released the Sputnik AP 120 and Sputnik Central Control, which combine to create a simple, manageable, and secure WiFi installation.
Just set up a Sputnik Central Control installation anywhere within your network, and then start plugging in Sputnik AP 120s right into your LAN. The AP 120s autoconfigure themselves, seek out Central Control, and automatically implement a wide range of security and management features, like dynamic firewalling, SSL-based user authentication, usage tracking, and policy routing. Central control allows administrators to easily set up and configure the captive portal, manage users, monitor AP usage, and generate reports. Gone are custom MAC address tables or per-AP configuration - and when you want to cover more area, simply purchase more AP 120s and plug them into your LAN.
It's easy to buy: For the Limited Availability release program, each AP 120 costs $185 and Central Control is offered at a 50% discount for people who sign up now ($895 retail to manage up to 20 APs). Compared to other companies offering enterprise-class solutions, Sputnik is an order of magnitude less expensive.
We're also signing up more hardware OEMs. Our pitch to them is, "put us out of the AP business!" We built the AP 120 on a set of standard reference hardware designs, and we're making our software available to OEMs at no charge. This allows OEMs to quickly build additional value around the software package and call themselves "Sputnik Powered" APs.
Gone are the high prices and closed nature of WiFi security and managability solutions - Sputnik takes advantage and adheres to open standards, allowing for significantly lower cost and greater extendability of the system. The system is based around open technologies like a SQL database, LDAP user directory (RADIUS and Active Directory coming soon), and SSL-based encryption and authentication.
We haven't left out the community networking folks either - each Sputnik-powered AP can be easily configured to become a community gateway. In order to run as a community gateway, you don't even need to purchase Central Control - all you need is an AP 120 or other Sputnik-powered AP. We'll be detailing more of these features after the Limited Availability program is completed, but the idea is that you can bring an AP 120 over to a friend's house, plug it into his/her LAN, and it will immediately become a community gateway, allowing others authenticated access to the Internet.
We've been working on this technology for over two years, and it is a joy to see it hitting the light of day. Many thanks to our beta sites, who provided us with tons of great feedback and references. Kudos most of all to the Sputnik team, who all pulled together to make this software release a reality. Everybody worked their butts off, and I'm really proud of the result. Onward and upward.
