News

Buffalo Technology Announces Revolutionary Wireless Home Networking Vision (17/11/2003)

The Company's Patent Pending Technology, Dubbed AirStation One-Touch Secure System is Designed to Offer the Total Solution for Effortless Wireless Home Networking. A New Product Category Emerges: "Information Electronics."

Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of networking solutions for home, SOHO and SMBs, today announced its new wireless home networking vision called the AirStation One-Touch Secure System (A.O.S.S) - a patent pending technology that is designed to make wireless home networking as simple as the click of a mouse.

A.O.S.S is designed to create a seamless home network infrastructure by allowing one wireless device on a network to serve all the clients on that network thus wireless devices can connect to and communicate with other wireless devices.

"In today's home network environment, if you add another computer, you have to deal with the hassle of getting that computer onto your existing network, security headaches abound, and you will have to add wireless clients one-by-one. Although our products are very easy to install, expanding a network can be complicated," stated Morikazu Sano, vice president of Buffalo Technology's Networking Division. "That is why we developed A.O.S.S, so users can simply install fewer products and get the ultimate wireless experience."

Buffalo is currently working with Broadcom (Nasdaq: BRCM) to provide a low power, yet high-performance Wireless LAN (WLAN) A.O.S.S based module. Buffalo also intends to form alliances with electronics manufacturers so they can implement the module into their products, e.g. printers, television sets, digital cameras, etc, which will then have the ability to communicate with AirStation products. Now consumers will have the benefit of seamless, cross-brand wireless connectivity throughout the home without the need for extra equipment.

"Consumer electronics and information technology continue to merge, hence the term "Information Electronics", continued Mr. Sano. "We see A.O.S.S as being very beneficial to home users in the future. There are very few people who have a home entertainment system made up of one brand of products. Typically, consumers have two or more brands. A.O.S.S in a way "standardizes" these brands so they will all be connected with one easy step."

One click on the AirStation's interface will integrate a PC or IE product into a network using A.O.S.S. With this click, the AirStation automatically changes its ESSID and shared key temporarily. The product will then search for an unregistered IE product, minimize the wireless signal power level and turn off wired and wireless operation. The AirStation will then communicate with closest IE product by encrypted wireless transmission and transfer its ESS-ID, PSK and IP settings. It also sets up WEP (64/128bit) and WPA (TKIP and AES) automatically. Then wired and wireless operation is turned back "on" and its operation is back to normal. The PC or IE product is now online and in sync with all the other products registered with the AirStation product.

A.O.S.S will be available Q2 in 2004 through a simple firmware upgrade on Buffalo's current AirStaion 54Mbps Wireless Broadband Router Base Station-g (WBR-G54), the AirStation 54Mbps Wireless Ethernet Converter-g (WLI-TX1-G54) and the Buffalo's 802.11b router - the AirStation Wireless Router Base Station (WBR-B11). Once the technology is complete, all of the aforementioned products will ship with A.O.S.S.

www.buffalotech.com