MultiCom is the products name of a broad range of broadband router and firewalls, including VPN IPSec gateway with strong encryption and security, developed and manufactured by Lightning MultiCom

Lightning MultiCom

Lightning MultiCom is a Swiss manufacturer of secure network access appliances and web-server software solutions. It also offers customized solutions in software and hardware....

 in Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

MultiCom products development originated at EPFL in Lausanne

Lausanne

Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...

, in the Laboratory of Computer Communication in 1992 by a group of computer enthousiasts, which earlier developed the Smaky

Smaky

The Smaky is a line of mostly 8-bit personal computers and accompanying operating system developed by Professor Jean-Daniel Nicoud and others at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland beginning in 1974. The computers were used at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and in...

 Swiss computer system. Later that year a startup, Lightning MultiCom was founded to commercialize these products, allowing multiple ways of network communication.

The very first product developed, the Classic MultiCom, has been used by SWITCH, the Swiss academic Network for early remote links over ISDN. Later, the Pocket MultiCom ([1998] review by C't) has been considered as a high-performance ISDN router despite its small size.

In 1999, the engineers took the decision to embedd the open-source Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 operating system into MultiCom products for broadband

Broadband

The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...

 Internet access for ADSL, CATV and HDSL/SDSL

SDSL

SDSL may refer to:*Symmetric digital subscriber line*Site-directed spin labeling...

 lines.

Carriers such as France Telecom

France Télécom

France Telecom S.A. is the main telecommunications company in France, the third-largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It currently employs about 180,000 people and has 192.7 million customers worldwide . In 2010 the group had revenue of €45.5 billion...

 and Swisscom

Swisscom

Swisscom AG is a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland. Along with Swiss Post, it is a successor company to the former state-owned PTT. Its headquarters are located at Worblaufen near Bern...

, and Swiss banks picked the MultiCom Products for linking companies and schools to the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

. Industrial Solutions have been developed around the MultiCom products. Even the European Space Agency

European Space Agency

The European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states...

 has used these products for the EGNOS

European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service is a satellite based augmentation system developed by the European Space Agency, the European Commission and EUROCONTROL. It supplements the GPS, GLONASS and Galileo systems by reporting on the reliability and accuracy of the signals...

GPS extension project for its ground network.