ERF Wireless (OTCBB:ERFW), a provider of enterprise-class wireless and broadband products and services, announced today that its ERF Enterprise Networks Services subsidiary has contracted with First Federal Bank of Louisiana to install a BranchNet encrypted enterprise-class wireless banking network to interconnect the bank's 14 locations throughout Southwestern Louisiana.
The initial portion of the contract will include construction of a 300-mile fault-tolerant, encrypted 60-Mb/s network backbone looping from Lake Charles up the western side of the state to Natchitoches, across to Alexandria, and down the central portion of the state back to Lake Charles. The contract also includes recurring revenues from seven years of monitoring, support and maintenance services.
Charles V. Timpa, President and CEO of First Federal Bank of Louisiana, noted, "The future of our bank is based on our ability to compete effectively through the use of the advanced digital applications that are available today and others that will be available in the future. We have recognized that more bandwidth will be the enabler for our voice, data and video communications. ERF Enterprise Network Services affords us the opportunity to build a state-of-the-art network that will vault us years into the future."
John A. Burns, CEO of ERF Enterprise Network Services, commented, "This is a large project with some links in excess of 35 miles involving over 50 of the new Orthogon radios incorporating spatially diverse point-to-point links that have historically proven to offer excellent reliability. We are installing seven monopole towers at certain branch locations and using 16 towers provided by the Louisiana State Police via our Cooperative Endeavor Agreement for the backbone. To secure the network and provide fail-over routing, we will also be installing 14 of our patent-pending CryptoVue encryption devices at the branch locations and at the main and secondary operations centers of the bank. We will also provide dual monitoring services of the network from our Network Operations Centers in Taylor and League City, Texas, using our patent-pending MonitorVue System."
Burns went on to note that ERF Wireless has vigorously pursued developing and certifying its CryptoVue and MonitorVue technologies that make securing high-speed wireless networks possible. "We've spent over four years working to address federal regulations concerning high-speed wireless enterprise networks for financial institutions," said Burns. "Our unique encryption technology has been subjected to numerous regulatory examinations, IT audits and vulnerability assessments as part of our certification process. Today, our focused research and development efforts are paying off for both our company and our banking customers."
James M. Fazende III, Chief Operating Officer for First Federal Bank, remarked, "The secure network being constructed for the bank will not only save us more than $1 million in data communications, long distance and courier costs over the next seven years, it will also increase our bandwidth to individual branches nearly 20-fold. This network allows our bank to add new digital services, which improve efficiencies and lower transport costs for other digital applications such as Voice-over-IP, video conferencing, document imaging, item imaging and branch capture, remote desktop support and branch IP security cameras viewable across the network. But most important to the bank was the fault-tolerant design of the encrypted system. The loss of communications from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita wreaked havoc on the banking industry and is still very fresh in our minds. By deploying a BranchNet system from ENS to replace our land-based circuits, the bank is making a commitment to prevent this type of disruption to our operations in the future."
"We worked closely with ERF Enterprise Network Services to incorporate the most advanced wireless technology in the engineering of this project to create a redundant ring design with automatic failover and automatic routing," said Perry Vincent, Owner of Louisiana Radio Communications and the primary installation subcontractor for the network. "The combination of over 50 of the latest generation radios combined with ERF's patent-pending CryptoVue encryption technology and project management expertise makes a very compelling product offering for the financial industry."