VIVATO SELECTED TO BRING WI-FI TO HISTORIC LINCOLN UNIVERSITY
Unique Indoor And Outdoor Wireless Coverage Requirements Prove Too Extreme for Conventional Access Points

SAN FRANCISCO, CA. - November 3, 2003 - Vivato™, a Wi-Fi infrastructure systems company, today announced that Lincoln University, the nation's first historically black university in Chester County, Pa., is deploying Vivato 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi Switches to provide wireless connectivity inside buildings and to outdoor common areas on its campus. Lincoln joins eight other Vivato customers in the education market.

In the largest enterprise deployment of Vivato switches to date, Lincoln University set out to make a quantum leap in the technology available for teaching and learning by providing broad-based network access for students and faculty. Lincoln has mounted 11 Vivato 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi switches around its 400-acre rural campus to provide students, faculty and visitors with access to wireless data services inside its library and cafeteria, in classrooms, science labs, offices, and green spaces around the campus. In assessing the options for constructing a wireless LAN on campus, Lincoln worked with Edutek Education Solutions, a value-added reseller that specializes in customized wireless solutions for educational institutions. Edutek and the Lincoln University IT department chose Vivato's products for their extreme range, ease of deployment and interoperability with the existing wired infrastructure.

Celebrating its sesquicentennial anniversary, Lincoln is currently undergoing a $29 million infrastructure upgrade that involves digging up major portions of the campus. Vivato's switches will provide for the ability to construct ad-hoc redundant links should the fiber backbone be damaged.

Lincoln rejected the conventional implementation of wireless access due to the cost and difficulty of cabling work in more than 40 buildings, most of which are not wired and some of which date back to the university's founding 150 years ago. Lincoln mounted eight outdoor panels and three indoor panels to provide wide-ranging coverage, and used a handful of repeaters to fill in challenging corners. Many of the outdoor switches provide coverage indoors, a strategy that works particularly well for the older buildings on campus.

"It would take many dozens of conventional access points plus point-to-point links, and realistically for Lincoln, several years of individual wiring projects to meet the objectives we accomplished with one technology and just 11 Vivato Wi-Fi switches," said Steve Carol, chief information technology officer at Lincoln University. "Vivato saved us time and money not only on hardware, but also on installation and network management. At the end of the day, Vivato allows us to provide better services to our students and faculty no matter where they want to connect on campus."

With such comprehensive coverage now available, Lincoln plans to investigate the use of handheld wireless devices to help university staff better communicate as they move around campus. Carol also looks forward to Vivato's future higher-speed, 802.11g offerings, which may allow Lincoln to use the wireless network for high-bandwidth applications that currently require wired building LANs.

"The current wireless switches providing 802.11b will work very well for us for the next few years, and as student and faculty demands inevitably rise, it appears that the wireless infrastructure will keep pace, explained Carol."

Vivato's 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi switches combine unique phased array antenna and switching electronics in a flat panel, which can support standard 802.11b Wi-Fi devices at a range of up to four kilometers outdoors and can provide Wi-Fi coverage from outdoor locations to indoor clients up to a mile away.

"The unique challenges of university and enterprise campuses are a sweet spot for Vivato's technology," explained Phil Belanger, vice president of marketing at Vivato. "We are the only vendor offering both indoor and outdoor solutions with extreme range and the ability to communicate with standard Wi-Fi clients. It's a winning combination."

About Vivato
Vivato, a Wi-Fi infrastructure systems company, is the inventor and first manufacturer of Wi-Fi switches designed to enable high bandwidth Wi-Fi wireless networks everywhere: in the enterprise, across campuses and throughout metropolitan areas. Vivato is headquartered in San Francisco with a research and development center in Spokane, Wash. For more information, please visit www.vivato.net or call 415.495.1111.

About Lincoln University
Lincoln University-America's first Historically Black University-is a nationally acclaimed institution of higher learning that provides the best elements of a liberal arts and sciences-based undergraduate core curriculum and selected graduate programs to prepare its students to live and compete successfully in a highly technological and global society.

Founded in 1854, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania is nationally recognized for being a major producer of African Americans with undergraduate degrees in the physical sciences (biology, chemistry, and physics); computer and information sciences; biological and life sciences. The University also ranks first in the same categories. From April 10, 2003 through May 2004, Lincoln is celebrating its sesquicentennial (150th) anniversary with an array of events, activities, and announcements.

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