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All-in-one firewall/DSL modem planned

Peter Judge ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 20 Mar 2002 18:21 GMT

Swiss networking company Lightning is planning to launch a product that combines a stateful inspection firewall, router and a DSL modem. The box will be available this quarter for the enterprise market, with a cheaper version coming for small businesses in the third quarter of the year, and one aimed for home users by the end of 2002, the company said.

"People used to think that routers were secure enough," said Gilles Trachsel, product marketing manager at Lightning. "Since the beginning of this year, they have been requesting firewalls."

The move fits in with the spread of "wires-only" DSL provision, in which the user must buy his or her own modem. Lightning's plan is to offer the product for a little over whatever the current cost of a DSL modem is -- a saving over the cost of buying two boxes.

The company also launched an enterprise firewall/VPN device which it says offers more encryption algorithms than others in its price range. It includes Triple DES, Blowfish, Twofish, CAST128, AES and IDEA for $4,000.

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