Company Sees Value-Added Services Playing a Key Role in the Success of Wi-Fi Pleasanton, CA, June 11, 2003 - Pronto Networks, a leading provider of carrier-class OSS solutions for large Wi-Fi hot spot networks, today announced that Ansat Communications has selected Pronto's public WLAN infrastructure solution as its core platform for offering wireless, online games to its subscribers. The wireless gaming market is growing rapidly and, according to Jupiter Research, online game subscriptions are expected to reach $600 million worldwide in 2003 and grow to more than $1.5 billion by 2006. Over the next year, Ansat plans to rollout hundreds of Wi-Fi locations throughout North America, Europe and Australia under its C4 Game Club brand.
"We're excited to be launching our Wi-Fi service ahead of the pack and partnering with one of the leaders in the Wi-Fi infrastructure space," said Jim Burke, COO of Ansat Communications Affiliate Program. "Wi-Fi access has the potential to take online gaming to a completely new level by enabling individuals to play online games in-person and interact with opponents."
Under its C4 Game Club brand, Ansat Communications offers a Wi-Fi Affiliate Membership Program to its 4.7 million users. In this program, subscribers who purchase the Wi-Fi Ultimate Game Club Service will receive a C4 Branded IP Gateway and unlimited access to C4 Game Clubs online for a monthly fee of $67.95. The C4 Branded IP Gateway is based on Pronto's Hotspot Controller, a highly integrated access point and gateway in a plug-n-play device located at the Wi-Fi location. IP Telephony and other video services will also be available via the Gateway.
The Wi-Fi service offers a C4 branded customer portal where users can log in to the service and self-administer their user accounts. In the future, Ansat plans to enhance the customized portal to enable users to contact other users during game play, respond to promotional rebates, and submit entries for prizes. Ansat also plans to leverage the portal to generate additional revenue through online advertisements.
"Pronto's public WLAN solution is well suited for new value-added applications, such as wireless online gaming. We view such services as significant revenue generators," said Jasbir Singh, CEO of Pronto Networks. "Pronto's flexible, standards-based OSS platform easily supports the addition of new functionalities required by these applications, such as e-commerce capabilities and location-based advertising."
More information regarding C4 Game Club's Wi-Fi program can be found at http://www.c4gameclub.com.
About Pronto Networks
Pronto Networks, based in Pleasanton, Calif., provides carrier-class Operations Support Systems (OSS) that enable network operators to deploy and manage large public hot spot networks. The company's software handles provisioning, configuration, authentication, access control, security, pre-paid and post-paid billing, and roaming settlement for large public WLAN networks, in addition to remotely managing and updating multi-vendor hardware and Wi-Fi switches. Pronto Networks is funded by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and the Intel Communications Fund and was recently listed as Wired Magazine's Top 25 Wi-Fi companies to watch. For more information about Pronto Networks, visit http://www.prontonetworks.com.
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