ORiNOCO™ WIRELESS NETWORK AIDS CRISIS CENTER

The Rape & Suicide Crisis Center of Southeast Texas (Beaumont, TX) needed to be able to add computers to its network whenever it wanted and also needed to be able to move furniture to accommodate new workers without having to re-cable the office network. In addition, the center wanted to connect all of their computers to a single DSL Internet connection so that all staff members could access the Internet. The center ended up selecting an Agere Systems ORiNOCO™ wireless network as the solution best able to provide the security and confidentiality it required, as well as the flexibility and freedom it needed to keep its operation up and running smoothly and economically.

Founded in the fall of 1973, the Rape & Suicide Crisis Center of Southeast Texas, Inc. is a United Way agency that provides information and assistance to individuals and their families who are survivors of sexual assault, general crisis, and suicide. The agency serves the Southeast Texas community through volunteer advocates and speakers.

The center offers an advocacy program, crisis counseling and referrals, medical and legal accompaniments and information, support groups, community education and public speaking, and a 24-hour crisis hotline (409-835-3355, or 1-800-7-WE-CARE) that people can call. In the year 2000, the crisis hotline averaged 100 crisis related calls per month with crisis intervention given to over 600 rape survivors and over 1,200 services were provided. The center is also in the process of developing an Internet-based resource library to assist and provide information to individuals who need it.

Not only does the Rape & Suicide Crisis Center of Southeast Texas rely heavily on its computers for office and administrative work, but also for keeping track of incoming calls to the crisis hotline.

When crisis center advocates receive calls on the hotline, the advocate who handles the call documents details such as number of incoming calls per day, number of those calls that were rape survivors, whether the caller had survived date rape or stranger rape, and demographic information such as age, sex, and occupation of the caller into this computer. The advocate must then forwards this information to crisis center staff, which enters the information into the center's computer system for follow-up to calls. The information is then transmitted to the Attorney General's office in Austin, Texas for statistical analysis. This ability is critical to the center's operations.

In the summer of 2001, the center had a DSL Internet connection installed to make the exchange of information faster and easier for all workstations. The center wanted all computers in its office to be able to connect to the DSL line at any time. Around this same time, the center needed to replace two computers that had become obsolete, and it needed to reorganize its office space to accommodate additional computers and advocates.

The center distributed requests for multiple bids to have a hardwired network installed in the office. However, after an agency volunteer introduced them to wireless networking, the center realized that a wireless network would allow the freedom and mobility it needed. They would be able to rearrange office space to accommodate additional staff without having to punch holes through walls and furniture. Furthermore, the center realized that a wireless network would provide the required file sharing and Internet connectivity with the Attorney General's office it needed. Even better, a wireless network was far less expensive than a wired network. In fact, the volunteer who originally introduced the center to wireless networking equipment installed the network for free.

The decision was made. The center decided to invest in ORiNOCO wireless networking equipment from Lucent Technologies (this division is now part of Agere Systems) and began installation immediately. One Agere ORiNOCO Residential Gateway (RG-1000) base station was positioned in the lobby of the center's office, and an Agere ORiNOCO USB Client was plugged into five desktop computers throughout the center.

The RG-1000 base station, roughly the size and shape of a clothes iron, is able to provide wireless Internet and network access for up to 30 individual users. The center's DSL connection was hooked directly to the RG-1000, which that then distributes the broadband access to USB client radios connected to the various desktop computers located throughout the center. In case the DSL Internet connection ever goes down, the RG-1000 also includes a 56K modem connection that will work with a standard dial-up Internet connection.

The plug and play USB Client devices made it easy to connect the center's desktop computers to the wireless network.

"It was so simple to set-up," said Ira Wilsker, volunteer network installer for the Rape & Suicide Crisis Center of Southeast Texas. "I just plugged the USB Client into the USB slots on the outside of the desktop computer, install the software, and had the computers up and running on the wireless network within minutes."

The ORiNOCO wireless network enables the center's staff to share files and send documents to the printers, all without the need for cables or wires. The wireless network also allows the center to use the high-speed DSL Internet connection to send and receive email, perform Internet research, and securely transmit confidential information from its 24-hour rape and suicide crisis hotline to the Attorney General's office for statistical purposes.

Confidentiality is very important to the Rape & Suicide Crisis Center of Southeast Texas. When a caller's statistical information is transmitted to the Attorney General's office over the center's DSL Internet connection, the caller's name and contact information must remain completely confidential. Not only does this protect the privacy of the caller, it is vital to their safety. It is for this reason that the center invested in the higher-security Gold USB Clients that provide 128-bit "Gold" encryption rather than the standard 64 bit silver cards. For an RG-1000-based wireless network, 128-bit encryption is the highest level of security available for the RG-1000 wireless network.

"We are so pleased with our wireless network," said Cheryl Williams, Executive Director of the Rape & Suicide Crisis Center of Southeast Texas. "I had no idea this technology was so readily available to us, and it is unbelievable how easy it was to network all of our computers and get us up on the Internet and networked together. With our growing staff and, hence, frequent reorganization of office space, it's a wonder how we would have survived with a hardwired network."

The center plans to continue adding computers to its wireless network. It may also begin using PDAs, Pocket PCs, and other portable handheld computing devices on its wireless network. These devices can be utilized by advocates in police stations and hospital emergency rooms to interview rape survivors, as they are far less imposing than laptop computers.

Wilsker said that the set-up and use of the ORiNOCO wireless network at the Rape & Suicide Crisis Center of Southeast Texas was so easy and convenient that he decided to install an ORiNOCO wireless network at home. He purchased another RG-1000 base station and positioned it in his 15 year old daughter's bedroom, where she reclines on the bed with the laptop and surfs the net and chats online with friends, all without cables and wires! Wilsker is soon going to move a new desktop computer into another room in his house, for which he'll purchase another ORiNOCO USB Client. The family will soon benefit from a cable modem so he and his family will be able to enjoy the high speed Internet access throughout the entire house.

The Rape & Suicide Crisis Center of Southeast Texas is located in Beaumont, TX. The center can be reached at 409-832-6530. The 24-hour, toll-free crisis hotline is: 1-800-7-WE-CARE. The center relies heavily on contributions. Interested parties may mail contributions to: P.O. Box 3208 / Beaumont, TX, 77704. We thank you in advance for your contributions.

With ORiNOCO, Morristown Financial Group “wows” clients and avoided doubling their networking expenses

The Client: Morristown financial group is a New Jersey-based financial planning and services firm that uses a mix of older WaveLAN and new ORiNOCO equipment from Agere Systems for their wireless network. The system uses a wireless access point connected to a hub to share a 1.5M bit/sec DSL connection. The wireless network supports 14 desktops, 4 laptops, and 2 printers. The firm originally selected the WavePOINT II (now called AP1000) access point because its dual slot architecture could support twice as many users as single slot access points and also provides an easy migration path to new wireless technologies as they develop.