ICI is rolling out wireless networks to its offices around the world to enable secure and easy connectivity to corporate systems.

The paints and adhesives manufacturer is deploying Aruba Networks’ wireless Lan technology for use in 55 countries to improve the efficiency, mobility and connectivity of users who move between corporate sites and remote locations, while maintaining the highest level of security and access control.

Paul Simmonds, global information security director at ICI, says the corporate rollout is underway with 10 sites live and two planned for early August.

‘We have around 10,000 laptops representing mobile users in a workforce of 26,000 employees. We have moved from having no laptops several years back to the point where more than 50 per cent of all our purchases are laptops, so mobile computing is growing,’ said Simmonds.

‘We held-off implementing wireless Lans as our early concern was that wireless was not secure and we also wanted it to be transparent to the user. We talked to companies that had implemented a virtual private network over the internet with secure ID cards and they hated it because of all of the paraphernalia before access.

'Our solution is transparent to the user - they can undock their machine, walk into a conference room and just connect without having to scrabble around for a cable.’

Aruba 6000 Mobility Controllers and access points make up the backbone of the wireless Lan, while remote access points allow mobile and home workers to securely connect to the corporate network. The system integrates with the company’s Active Directory authentication system.

Simmonds says centralised policy and network management and intrusion detection capabilities were key to sealing the deal.

‘We have removed the support nightmare that often comes with wireless as we can enforce configuration globally. Every installation of wireless is to the company standard and changes are centrally managed. Also the network monitors the airspace and can identify a rogue access point on the network and terminate it, so we don’t have to monitor a huge growing system,’ he said.

Rollout is expected to be completed by 2008 as take-up is decided locally, depending on business case and budget.