NATCOM announces the launch of its SLAM™ Firewall in response to changes in copyright law

Auckland, 17 February 2009 – National Communications Corporation Limited (NATCOM), an IP-services company announced today that it has launched its SLAM™ Firewall in response to a new provision in the Copyright Act (Section 92A), effective in law on 28 February 2009.

SLAM™, which stands for Service Level and Access Management, is a hardware and software product developed by NATCOM.  Its primary purpose is to combat the ease of copyright infringement under the new copyright laws and in general provides a data management and reporting service so businesses can better understand how their Internet connection is performing and how it is being used.
The new copyright law brings with it significant new responsibilities to Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) and all Internet users.

Steve Smith, Commercial Director of NATCOM commented that few businesses today fail to make extensive use of Internet as part of their normal technology needs.  “Whether you operate on ordinary ADSL or at the other end of the broadband spectrum (such as NATCOM Managed Fibre), as a business operator you need to understand and prepare for the changes about to impact your organisation, or potentially suffer the severe consequences.”

In short the amendments force downstream, from the ISP to the customer, responsibility for the protection of copyrighted material, whether they be images, video, audio, or any other file type.  Should a copyright holder make a complaint (to the relevant ISP) that someone at your ‘address’ has downloaded a copyright protected file without permission, then the ISP may be called on to ‘take action’ against the offending entity – this could easily result in the curtailment of services!

“What is not widely known is that under the Act any business that provides Internet services or access to its staff is regarded as an ISP and is therefore at risk” says Smith.

When asked what the industry has done to help with compliance, Frayne Cooke, Managing Director of NATCOM says “to date, most ISP’s are tending to concentrate on the impact to their own business and few have explored the minefield facing the Internet customer.”  NATCOM has started to advise its clients on preparing for the new law and is making its SLAM™ Firewall a standard feature of all of its Managed Fibre Internet services. 

Cooke says that SLAM™ Firewall is an appliance that virtually eliminates the prospect of illegal downloads by using Deep Packet Inspection technology.  Whilst it is able to identify unwanted protocols and risky websites, it employs advanced security features to ensure protection of the business’s data.

“Several of the other larger equipment vendors have their own hardware based product, but cost and ongoing support make them suitable to only large corporate networks. NATCOM’s SLAM™ Firewall is scalable to meet the needs of small to medium and large enterprise.” 

Although optimised to work with NATCOM’s Fibre Internet services, the SLAM™ appliance is also available to non-NATCOM Internet customers for a nominal monthly fee, and can be plugged into any business Internet connection.

ENDS

About NATCOM

National Communications Corporation Limited (NATCOM) is a privately held New Zealand company based in Auckland.

Founded in 2004, NATCOM specialises in Managed Fibre Internet services for businesses.  As an Enterprise IP-Services Provider, NATCOM delivers a blend of creative services and solutions through four business units:

Infrastructure.  Enterprise ISP, offering managed data services with fibre-optic networking for corporate and SME.

Managed Services.  Hosted enterprise services and applications, and Data-centre services.

Mobility.  Wi-Fi and mobile applications.

International.  NATCOM works with and provides services to a wide range of international operators, on every continent.

For more information please see our website – www.natcom.co.nz

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