Motorola wireless platform earns security certification

Motorola Inc.'s Canopy wireless broadband solution has been certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to meet the government's Federal Information Processing Standard-197, the company said.

NIST tested version 2.0 of Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola's Canopy AES128 firmware, which runs on the company's Canopy radios to provide secure wireless communications.

The FIPS-197 standard applies to implementations of the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm, considered the highest level on encryption publicly available. AES is widely used in government agencies, including the Defense Department, to protect sensitive data as it's transmitted across wired and wireless networks.

"Secure communications are a specialized need for many public and private entities, from government agencies to law enforcement to banking. Certification of our AES algorithm provides assurance to those customers that the Canopy solution meets the government's rigorous standards," said Tom Gruba, director of marketing and customer support for Motorola's Canopy Wireless Broadband group.

The Canopy platform is a wireless broadband solution designed for last-mile connectivity. According to the company, a point-to-multipoint system can achieve aggregate data rates of up to 6 Mbps over a range of 10 miles. Point-to-point connections can go as fast as 14 Mbps up to 35 miles.

By 2006, major technology companies such as AT&T Corp., Fujitsu Microelectronics America Inc. and Intel Corp. expect solutions based on the 802.16 wireless standard, commonly known as WiMax. Like Canopy, WiMax is meant to be a wireless broadband solution for providing high-speed Internet connections.

With 2003 revenues of $27.1 billion, Motorola ranked No. 21 on Washington Technology's 2004 Top 100 list, which measures federal contracting revenue.