Q. Who is Wayport?
Founded in 1996 and based in Irving, Texas, Wayport helps some of the world’s top brands enhance their customers’ experience. Wayport supports innovative organizations with breakthrough network management, serving nearly 12,000 directly enabled and managed locations across 35 countries. Wayport serves notable brands in a variety of vertical markets, including AT&T customers through a managed service agreement.

Q. What is a managed service agreement?
A managed service agreement creates the basis for Wayport to install, manage and support Wi-Fi networks for other providers. The service is branded for the provider and is transparent to the user that Wayport manages the network and access points.

Q. Is Wayport an international company?
Yes, Wayport provides services in 35 countries and we have expanded our presence in the global market place through growth and acquisition.

Q. Is Wayport publicly traded?
No. Wayport is a privately held company, with major investors comprised of Sevin Rosen Funds, INVESCO Private Capital, New Enterprise Associates, BA Venture Partners and Trellis Partners. Other Wayport investors include Lucent Venture Partners, GC Technology Fund, Sanders Morris Harris, Star Ventures and GIC.

Q. Does Wayport plan on going public?
Wayport continues to evaluate many different opportunities to expand our business. The company is not discussing future strategic plans at this time.

Q. Is Wayport profitable?
Yes.

Q. What is Wayport’s business strategy?
Building on the strength of our network infrastructure and eleven years of expertise, we want to find out what our brand partners truly want so that we can build a solution aimed offering their customers a remarkable experience.

Q. What hotels does Wayport provide service to?
Wayport provides service to nearly 700 hotels including the following brands:

Four Seasons, Loews, Wyndham, Summerfield Suites, Hilton, Radisson, Sheraton, Sierra Suites, Doubletree, Ramada, Hampton Inn, Marriott, Days Inn, Crowne Plaza, Embassy Suites, Best Western, Westin, Omni and Country Inns & Suites by Carlson.

Q: How many hotels offer Wayport wired and wireless access and how many of those properties have Wi-Fi access in guestrooms as well as in lobbies?
Wayport provides service to nearly 700 hotels worldwide. We see that more and more new hotel deployments are all Wi-Fi enabled, with about 85% of new installations in the U.S. going all Wi-Fi.

Q. What hotels does Wayport provide service to?
Wayport provides service to nearly 700 hotels including the following brands:

Four Seasons, Loews, Wyndham, Summerfield Suites, Hilton, Radisson, Sheraton, Sierra Suites, Doubletree, Ramada, Hampton Inn, Marriott, Days Inn, Crowne Plaza, Embassy Suites, Best Western, Westin, Omni and Country Inns & Suites by Carlson.

Q. What is Wi-Fi roaming and how does it work?
Wayport enables large carriers to resell access to our Wi-Fi locations to their subscriber base. For example AT & T promotes Wayport’s service to their DSL customers, giving them access to Wayport’s Wi-Fi venues. Wayport provides the nation’s largest Wi-Fi infrastructure for our roaming partners, allowing them to offer Wi-Fi without the expense of building out their own networks.

Q. Who are Wayport’s roaming partners?
AT & T, Verizon Business, Sprint, iPass, Boingo, Fiberlink, WeRoam, and Trustive. Wayport also holds a unique roaming agreements with ZipIt Wireless which offers free access to ZipIt’s Z2 IM devices at McDonald’s locations powered by Wayport.

Q. Has Wayport acquired any companies?
In 2005 Wayport acquired NetPoint, a leading European provider of high-speed Internet Access for the hospitality industry, which encompassed 120 hotels in more than 22 countries. Operating out of Copenhagen, Denmark, Wayport EMEA (Europe/Middle East/Africa) serves to develop new lines of business for Wayport on a global basis.

In April, 2006 Wayport acquired NetPower, one of the leading Scandinavian providers of high-speed Internet access, adding 60 hotel and retail venues to Wayport’s European footprint.

Today Wayport serves nearly 200 hotels and retail venues outside the U.S.

In February, 2007, Wayport acquired the assetsof ResortWiFi, LLC, apremier Wi-Fi Internet services provider focusing predominantly on the timeshare (also called interval ownership) industry. ResortWiFi serves such upscale timeshare and hotel companies as Fairfield Resorts International (a Wyndham Worldwide Company, being renamed Wyndham Vacation Resorts), Monarch Grand Vacations and other top-tier developments.

Q. Was the acquisition of NetPoint Wayport’s first expansion into Europe?
Wayport has served the European Market since 1999, and our services have been available outside the U.S. in 10 other countries related to our relationship with the Four Seasons. The Wayport EMEA team will seek to launch additional operations throughout the region.

Q. Does Wayport have additional acquisition plans?
Wayport carefully considers growth opportunities within the realm of our own core competencies and the synergies that can be acquired through strategic acquisitions. The Wayport network has grown to nearly 12,000 locations worldwide, and strategic acquisitions can complement that growth. We continue to evaluate potential partners who have built strong businesses with strategies that align well with Wayport’s.

Q. How does Wayport compare to other Wi-Fi service providers and what do you think you do that keeps customers coming back?
Wayport is a full-service provider that provides a carrier grade Wi-Fi network, 24/7/365 in-house call center support (for U.S. support and for Four Seasons in Europe), high levels of security and roaming access to the mobile broadband consumer. Wayport also offers the largest number of public Wi-Fi hot spots in the U.S., so the service is very accessible to consumers needing to extend their digital lifestyle.

No other Wi-Fi service provider offers a comprehensive a set of network services and applications for premier brands that compares to Wayport’s. We provide breakthrough network services and technology and support innovative internal and public-facing applications customized to the specific needs and requirements of our brand partners.

Wayport collaborates with organizations to help them gain a competitive advantage with innovative technology, becoming thought leaders and idea generators in their industries.

Q. Describe the markets you serve.
Our target market dynamics can be described as follows:

• Regional or National Brands:  A recognized name presence in a large geographical area

• Distributed locations:  Day to day business activities are conducted  through hundreds or thousands of physical locations throughout a state, region or country

• Visitor based locations:  Businesses  require their customers to visit them at their physical location in order to conduct their business activity

• Little or no IT support:  Because of the nature of the way these companies conduct their business, combined with the disbursement of their location and their business models, there is little or no information technology support within their field locations

• Down or dwell time destinations:  A business location that naturally supports and invites customers to spend time at the location

Q. Who are Wayport’s biggest competitors?
Because Wayport serves a diverse market with unique business models, no clear leading competitor emerges. From a footprint standpoint, Wayport’s biggest competitor is T-Mobile. In the hospitality industry, both iBahn and GuestTek compete with Wayport in the hotel space. Netifice offers connectivity services for the retail enterprise market; however, Wayport’s customized network services, application integration and support levels for large retail venues offers a unique business model that is unmatched in the industry.

Q. Will Wi-Fi availability become more widespread? What factors are driving usage?
As more devices become enabled with Wi-Fi (Notebook computers, handheld computers, cell phones, and other devices), we believe more consumers will seek access to digital services.

Q. Wi-Fi enabled phones with Wi-Fi built in are becoming available now. What do you think that will mean for the hot spot space and your company in particular?
As more and more Wi-Fi enabled devices enter the market place, it means more people are looking for convenient locations with access to Wi-Fi networks. We feel the growth in Wi-Fi devices will continue to fuel the growth of the hot spot industry and will engage a much broader consumer market.

Q. Wi-Fi and 3G are considered complementary technologies or adversaries depending upon whom you ask. What’s your take given the state of both markets?
We believe that the technologies are complimentary. Through our roaming agreements with major carriers, a plan could be offered that combines Wi-Fi 2.5G - 3G service so customers can select their preferred connection and be billed on a single invoice. Since we work with many carriers like AT&T, Cingular and Sprint/Nextel, this makes it easy for customers to buy the service from the provider that is most convenient for them.

Q. Where does Wayport stand as far as WiMax technology is concerned? Do you think it will take off and how might your customers benefit?
Wayport deploys high-speed Internet including Wi-Fi 802.11b and, more recently, 802.11b/g. It should be noted that “WiMax” actually refers to several different technologies including 802.16a,d and e. Each of these technologies has different capabilities, including the ability to cover longer distances than Wi-Fi. Thus Wi-Fi and WiMax are complimentary just as Cable or DSL and Wi-Fi or EVDO and Wi-Fi are complimentary technologies. Our current position is that WiMax may initially be used to connect devices to the Internet, but it may provide the signal to the building that enables the Wi-Fi service. It is Wayport’s view that 802.11 technology (Wi-Fi) will continue to be the technology of choice for in-building high-speed wireless communications for many years to come because of the speed and cost benefits. We see that technologies like EVDO and Wi-Max can best be used for outside coverage.

Q. A lot of metro areas are looking into creating municipal Wi-Fi networks. What do you think of that trend and will Wayport become involved in it?
Wayport appreciates trends that promote widespread usage of Wi-Fi. We intend to follow our current strategy of deploying strategic locations that work with our business model and support our partners. We continue to evaluate each opportunity individually and we are talking to ISP’s in the muni Wi-Fi business who are interested in our capabilities as a managed service provider.

Q. What will Wayport do to prevent security breaches?
Wayport uses the industry standard encryption method (128-bit) for all sensitive information with secure web pages and a certificate from Verisign. We also do not publish credit card information to the end-user even in our account management options.

Wayport's fraud detection software prevents multiple simultaneous users and our system automatically tracks excessive use on the network to make sure usernames and passwords are used correctly and by one person (as it is outlined in our Acceptable Use Policy).

Q. What measures does Wayport have in place at its locations to keep its network secure for customers? Do these security measures differ depending on the venue (airports, hotels, McDonald’s)?
Wayport installs and configures all of our networks to provide reasonable levels of security for all users without impacting the customer’s ability to connect to the network. Wayport provides a sophisticated firewall system at each property, which blocks many of the common security holes from attacks that originate on the Internet at large. Wayport works to protect users from worms and viruses by blocking the ports over which viruses propagate. In addition, (where technically possible) Wayport provides port-isolation to ensure that one customer’s traffic on the local network is not viewable by another user.

However; Wayport stresses that security of customer information is ultimately the responsibility of the end-user. No matter what measures an ISP takes to make the environment secure, the customer is responsible for protecting their computer and sensitive information. Any network, especially a public network should be viewed and treated by the customer as a non-secure environment, and the customer should take reasonable measures to ensure that any sensitive information is protected. Wayport provides broad support for most commercial Virtual Private Network (VPN) software.

Q. What would you offer up as Best Practices that Internet service providers need to keep in mind to keep their networks secure?
Best practices in a public network are quite different from a private network. In a private network, the provider can enforce very strict security policies. In a public network, the provider has to configure the system to allow any customer to connect. Hence, we must support almost all operating systems (Microsoft Windows 95-XP, Apple Mac OS, Linux). Intel is helping with creating some standards of performance with the Intel Centrino Certification program (Wayport is Centrino Certified). Industry organizations and companies have recognized the need for specialized Wi-Fi encryption. 802.1X is available, and with TKIP, it is viewed as secure. WPA and 802.11i should solve most of the wireless security issues. Again, the responsibility for protecting Internet traffic is primarily on the shoulders of the user.

Other things that Wayport and all ISPs can and should do:

• Block common attacks from the internet-at-large via a firewall
• Privatize each connection (similar to a VLAN) to prevent file sharing between users
• Only allow submission of credentials such as credit card or password information over a secure, encrypted connection (https).
• Block known worm and virus transmissions

Wayport configures its new installations to these guidelines where applicable. Wayport offers training courses via conference call for IT administrators whose users frequently use the Wayport network.