Mercury Builds 'Stealth Wi-Fi' at Naval Academy... "Strengthening Growth in Military Business Sector"

Mercury, a specialized information and communication equipment company, announced on the 12th that it held the 'Wi-Fi-based Intelligent Stealth Network (ISN) Technology Living Lab Opening Ceremony' at the Korea Naval Academy on the 27th of last month in collaboration with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI).

This living lab establishment was prepared as part of the Ministry of Science and ICT's ETRI research and development support project to verify the applicability of advanced security technologies developed in the private sector for defense purposes.

Mercury and ETRI plan to operate the ISN living lab at the Korea Naval Academy, conduct tests in actual defense field environments, address issues, and strengthen defense applicability.

Unlike general Wi-Fi, ISN is designed so that only authorized users can access the network, and unauthorized users cannot even detect the network's existence, intelligently 'stealthing' it. It especially provides traffic monitoring, threat detection and blocking functions, making it easy to prevent external intrusions, which is essential for military and other sectors requiring high security levels.

Mercury installed Wi-Fi 6 wired and wireless access points (APs) in this living lab and plans to replace them with Wi-Fi 7 APs in the future. Wi-Fi 7 AP is the next model following Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, developed as a next-generation strategic product through Mercury's continuous R&D investment. The Wi-Fi 7 AP with stealth functionality is planned to be developed in collaboration with ETRI by the second half of 2025.

A Mercury official stated, “Through continuous technology exchanges such as the living lab with ETRI, we will conduct tests to apply future ICT development outcomes to defense,” adding, “We plan to pursue listening to and resolving military requirements, ICT support for defense, safety, disaster, as well as convenience and welfare needed by the military, and joint research for K-Defense.”

He further added, “Based on these development results, we plan to expand our position in the secure Wi-Fi AP market and strengthen our new growth momentum.”

Meanwhile, according to the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), the domestic information security industry market in 2023 is worth over 6 trillion KRW, and with the recent expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) usage, the importance of security is increasing, leading to a growing security equipment market.

A company representative said, “Reflecting these market conditions, we are expanding the Wi-Fi AP business and aiming for growth in the military business sector through stealth Wi-Fi commercialization, along with the naval satellite communication project (MOSCOS II), which has been actively supplied since this year following last year's contract.”