Contact:
Chriss Swaney
412-268-5776
James Glessner, Helium Networks
412-749-1550 (x 1)

For immediate release:
February 26, 2003

Helium Networks to Commercialize Wireless LAN Technology Invented by Carnegie Mellon University Researchers

PITTSBURGH—Helium Networks, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based mobile and wireless solutions company, announced today that it has signed an exclusive license to commercialize patented wireless LAN technologies and prototyped tools invented at Carnegie Mellon University. Wireless LANs, also known as "Wi-Fi," are labor intensive to design and optimize for network coverage and reliability. The tools and technologies from Carnegie Mellon reduce the cost of Wi-Fi design and ongoing maintenance by nearly 50 percent.

The design and optimization tool, dubbed "Rollabout" by Carnegie Mellon inventors, takes the guesswork out of designing and maintaining wireless LANs. Wi-Fi design today uses a trial-and-error technique of positioning and testing access points multiple times to complete a site survey. Rollabout combines several patented technologies in a unique, self-sufficient mobile platform, and eliminates the trial-and-error placement of access points. Using Rollabout, Wi-Fi designers position access points, and move Rollabout through the facility to create a coverage map, and collect and interpret distance and radio signal data for the best Wi-Fi design.

To obtain the most complete and reliable wireless LAN design, a designer uses the Rollabout-generated coverage map and a drag-and-drop design interface to "virtually" relocate access points on the screen to receive a real-time estimate of the resulting coverage. Rollabout technology assists the designer in determining optimal access point placements and the best frequency assignments.

Alex Hills, Rollabout's inventor and distinguished service professor at Carnegie Mellon, said "Rollabout is the result of almost a decade of experience in designing and troubleshooting wireless LANs. Wireless LAN access points must be placed correctly, and radio frequencies must be correctly assigned to these base stations."

Industry analysts predict that by 2005, there will be 80 million wireless LANs in use worldwide. Analysts from IDC, the industry's largest provider of technology intelligence, also predict that quality of service and the uncertainty of ongoing operational costs will no doubt determine the pace of new technology deployment.

"Cost effective, reliable wireless LAN implementations require breakthrough new ideas for design and optimization of Wi-Fi access point placements. Rollabout is that breakthrough solution," said James S. Glessner, co-founder and president of Helium Networks.

About Helium Networks
Helium Networks, headquartered in Pittsburgh, delivers innovative, information-based solutions and infrastructure design, leveraging Wireless LAN and mobile computing applications for businesses, and academic, government and health care institutions. Helium Networks' Wireless LAN designs and applications are optimized to consider the impact of future growth and performance, along with the increased dynamics of security and network management.

About Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is one of the nation's leading private research universities. The university's interdisciplinary approach provides graduates with professional and technical skills and a strong science and liberal arts background. The university is one of the most technologically sophisticated campuses in the world. When it introduced its "Andrew" computing network in the mid 1980s, it pioneered educational applications of technology through its problem-solving culture and interdisciplinary research collaborations.