NetMotion adds cloud-based tool to mobile broadband portfolio

NetMotion Wireless today launched Locality Cloud, a cloud-based version of the company’s Locality application, which provides enterprises with insights into the real-world coverage and data-throughput performance of mobile broadband networks.

“The biggest new feature is that we’re now hosting it in the cloud,” Mark Pendolino, director of marketing communications for NetMotion Wireless, said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “Before, you’d have put up a server in your back office that aggregates the data. Now, we offer it as a hosted solution, and we’re using subscription-based pricing … which hopefully makes it a lot easier for other organizations to try it out and use it.”

In addition to leveraging the cloud, the newest version of the Locality app is designed to provide improved accuracy, greater scalability, expanded browser capability, and the ability to work on Android and Windows 8 devices, as well as certain iOS devices.

Other features include an improved user interface and revamped security measures, according to Harish Nataraj, NetMotion Wireless’s product manager for Locality.

“Prior to the availability of the cloud, most of the deployments were running through a VPN solution, like Mobility XE,” Nataraj said during an interview. “Now, since it’s on the cloud, there’s no VPN, so we need to add some additional security, so that the clients not only are talking encrypted to the cloud, they’re also mutually authenticated.

“In other words, the cloud knows the authenticity of the client, and the client knows the authenticity of the [Locality] cloud. So, some random client can’t send data to the cloud.”

NetMotion Wireless will continue to offer its previous version of Locality, because some enterprise customers will want to have the server on its premises to maintain control of the system, according to Pendolino. However, those that opt for Locality Cloud will realize significant flexibility advantages, he said.

“You save on capital-expense costs. You don’t have to purchase the server, you don’t have to maintain it,” Pendolino said “We host everything—all of the maintenance updates are done on the server that we’re managing.

“The subscription pricing makes it a lot easier to get started right away, and it starts out at $4.50 per license [per month], with tiered discounts with the more licenses you purchase.”

Locality Cloud is commercially available immediately, Pendolino said. NetMotion Wireless is demonstrating Locality Cloud this week in Booth 717 at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) show in Philadelphia.