A company specializing in serving carrier customers introduces purchase plans for regular ISPs.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [February 7, 2006]

For years we've told anyone who asked us that we consider Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Mirapoint's products the best security but also the most expensive available. For example, boxes released in 2002 started at $38,000. Early customers included NTT, and the company may well have been the first to build an appliance that could provide security for NTT's proprietary mobile web protocol.

More recently, however, the company has released a cheaper server, the M50 (starting at $11,000), and announced new purchase plans.

Craig Carpenter, Mirapoint director of corporate marketing and global channels, insists that the company's new smaller server is still high quality. "We're about enterprise class functionality. We don't believe in cheap in the sense of something that's going to break down."

Even as Mirapoint begins to work with smaller ISPs, the focus remains on those ISPs that provide a large portfolio of services to demanding customers.

A typical small customer is Roseville, Calif.-based SureWest Communications, with about 50,000 broadband customers, a local ILEC area, some fiber, and some cellular customers (see, for example, our 2003 profile of the company).

Enterprise services
In addition to security, the company has build a groupware package that can integrate with Microsoft Office, and plans to add more services.

For carrier customers, Mirapoint has built software that makes it easy to manage and provision large numbers of Mirapoint appliances.

For the future, the company is looking at adding instant messaging security and may in the future add VoIP features. Mirapoint's core competence is messaging, and the long term goal is to secure and improve all communications.

Purchase plans
For now, we're talking to the guy who's made it easier to buy a box if your not an RBOC or PTT. "A customer can purchase, resell, or lease," says Carpenter.

Purchase is straightforward. Since the company recommends redundancy, it will sell you two boxes for the price of two, for a total of $22,000.

On the resell plan, an ISP purchases services from another service provider, at a price determined by that service provider.

On the leasing plan, a company buys the box from a leasing company and makes quarterly payments (exact lease prices were not disclosed).

If you're providing top of the line service to demanding business customers, you need to look at Mirapoint. If you're providing cheap residential service, look elsewhere.

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