Antarctica NZ to Optimize Satellites with Expand Networks

SYDNEY, Australia -- Nov 10, 2008 -- Expand Networks, www.expand.com a leading provider of application acceleration solutions over the Wide Area Network (WAN), today announced that Antarctica NZ, the Crown Entity responsible for developing, managing and executing New Zealand Government interests in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, has recently deployed Expand Networks’ WAN optimization technology to accelerate satellite communications and deliver impressive savings in satellite bandwidth costs.

Antarctica NZ manages Scott Base, New Zealand’s Antarctic research station, hosting up to 83 visitors at any one time. Located nearly 4,000 kilometers from Antarctica NZ’s headquarters in Christchurch, Scott Base is highly dependent on its Telecom NZ satellite connection to connect with colleagues and family. Antarctica NZ implemented Expand’s Accelerators to maximize its 64/256K frame relay connection, combating WAN latency issues with its Citrix-based applications and remote web browsing.

Mike Mahon, IT administrator for Antarctica NZ comments; “The clever combination of compression, acceleration and caching that goes on within the Expand Accelerators has considerably reduced our latency issues, both within Citrix and with web browsing. Despite a 600ms latency on our satellite link, the data speeds we are experiencing are markedly improved, and are now really rather impressive for a 7,600 km round trip just to reach the Internet connection! Saving $2,000 per month on 8Kb in effective additional bandwidth also gave us an ROI in just four months.”

Steve O’Brien, Vice President of Expand Networks APAC explains; “A remote site in one of the world’s most desolate locations, Scott Base has incredibly limited options to increase the bandwidth available to scientists and Antarctica NZ base staff. Buying more capacity from the satellite is a costly option, so it makes sense for Antarctica NZ to optimize the bandwidth they already have within the WAN. When every application or web browsing session is important, prioritizing data is not enough. Our Accelerators ensure that every application can run unimpeded on the WAN, decreasing congestion, managing QoS and rate control.”

Expand Networks’ Accelerators use low latency, lossless techniques that work on all applications to consistently deliver average bandwidth increases between 100 per cent and 400 percent. Expand's Quality of Service (QoS) enforcement also ensures that applications run unimpeded on the WAN. This is not just prioritization, but also includes sophisticated algorithms to combat congestion, mark packets for downstream QoS handling and rate control shaping to make sure data flows get the bandwidth they need.

About Antarctica New Zealand

Antarctica New Zealand is the Crown Entity responsible for developing, managing and executing New Zealand Government interests in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Antarctica NZ manages Scott Base, New Zealand’s Antarctic research station, located on Ross Island in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica, 3,932 km from Christchurch New Zealand and 1,500 km from the South Pole.

Visitors to Scott Base are primarily scientists and Antarctica NZ provides logistics and event planning services as well as day-to-day operations support encompassing accommodation, transport, food, heating, water and IT. The base has a permanent staff of 32 and up to 100 visitors at any one time.

About Expand Networks

Expand Networks is the pioneer and leader in the WAN Optimization market and is positioned by Gartner Inc. in the ‘Leaders’ quadrant in its Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization Controllers, 2007. Expand helps organizations simplify their IT infrastructure while delivering remote offices fast, reliable and secure access to networked applications. This results in improved user productivity and cost-effective IT management. Expand offers a multi-service integrated platform that ensures superior performance for any application over any network. From its headquarters in Roseland, NJ and its global locations, Expand Networks serves more than 3,500 enterprise and public sector customers in over 100 countries including: American Express, Bacardi USA, BMW, Continental Airlines, Carr America, Colgate, Elizabeth Arden, Reed Exhibitions, Target and United States Department of Defense with over 40,000 units deployed and over 2,000 MS Terminal Services and Citrix customers. Expand is the largest supplier of WAN Optimization products to US Government and Military agencies (greater than 10,000 units) and also has the most units deployed at a single corporate location, (4,500).