Mauritius Commercial Bank taps fSONA for network expansion

August 16, 2005 McLean, VA -- fSONA Systems, a provider of secure optical wireless systems, today announced that Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB) will expand its secure wireless banking network with additional fSONA SONAbeam technology, to be installed and commissioned by I-Telecom, the communications division of the Ireland Blythe Limited (IBL) Group of Mauritius.

In 2003, IBL installed an optical wireless network consisting of five SONAbeam systems for MCB throughout the city and waterfront area of Port-Louis, Mauritius. IBL and MCB say they selected the SONAbeam platform for this initial phase of their network build-out because of the technology's inherent Layer 1 security features, which allow for the secure transmission of confidential data across the city.

"In the two years since this network was initially deployed, MCB has experienced outstanding performance from our SONAbeam network," comments Patrice Ferriere, general manager for I-Telecom(IBL). "When it came time to expand the network, internal policy dictated that the bank was required to re-evaluate other communications technologies as well as the main competitors of fSONA. After a rigorous evaluation of the alternatives, it was unanimously decided to continue the expansion with fSONA's SONAbeam. The conclusion we came to with the information technology division of MCB was that fSONA today, as it did two years ago, offers a very high quality solution that provided superior all weather performance and increased reliability over competing systems. Due to the fact that our prime centers of operation present geographic challenges in that they are situated several hours by aircraft off the coast of mainland Africa, IBL Group have an uncompromising internal policy with respect to only doing business with people that can step up to the plate when it comes to support. Over the past three years, Carl Cag and the fSONA EMEA team have given unquestionable support to IBL Group ranging from communication strategy meetings at the government level, through to sweating it out with our engineering division on mast sites at the top of mountains. fSONA has achieved a level and of faith and understanding within our organization that others can only aspire to reach; their complete understanding of our requirements and strategic vision have made a very real difference."

"fSONA is proud that our SONAbeam products have been selected for the second phase of this secure banking network," remarks Sunny Taylor, CEO of fSONA Systems. "The network that has been established in Port-Louis is a superb example of an all-wireless, gigabit capacity, secure private banking network. What is especially notable in this case is the geographic challenges that were overcome. A mesh architecture was utilized in the metro areas, while links were deployed in daisy chain over the mountains that surround the city of Port Louis and into a banking center in the next town. It is clear that the team at I-Telecom is breaking new ground with the tactical use of free space optics technology, and we are honored to be an integral part of their ongoing success."