Aegate Ltd — 00:16:57 (MA-L)

Aegate Ltd holds a single MA-L block under OUI prefix 00:16:57, registered to a company at the Technology Centre, Melbourn, Hertfordshire, England (postcode SG8 6DP). Aegate was a UK pharmaceutical medicine-authentication business: it ran a real-time software service that verified the authenticity of serialized prescription medicines by scanning their 2D data-matrix barcodes at the point of dispense, primarily to help pharmacies comply with the EU Falsified Medicines Directive. Pharmacy customers received standalone laptops paired with 2D barcode scanners, which connected wirelessly to Aegate's UK-hosted authentication repository to validate each pack's serial number in real time. Because Aegate was fundamentally a software-and-services provider rather than a hardware manufacturer, the 00:16:57 assignment most plausibly covers the network interfaces inside those bundled pharmacy authentication terminals — so these MAC addresses would normally only appear inside regulated pharmacy or hospital dispensing environments, and seeing them elsewhere would be anomalous. The company is now defunct: it entered creditors' voluntary liquidation on 21 June 2017 (The Gazette notice 2812911). No public CVEs or security advisories were found for Aegate hardware. As with all OUI assignments, IEEE publishes no registration date; the "2005-11-04" shown on third-party lookup tools is a database artifact, not an IEEE fact.

IEEE assignment

00:16:57 → Aegate Ltd, Technology Centre, Melbourn, Hertfordshire, GB SG8 6DP [Confirmed] — IEEE MA-L; maclookup.app

Registry / block size

MA-L (24-bit OUI); single prefix. Not present in MA-M (the IEEE MA-M registry) or MA-S (the IEEE MA-S registry) [Confirmed] — IEEE registry files

HQ / country

Technology Centre, Melbourn (Melbourn Science Park), Hertfordshire, England, GB SG8 6DP [Confirmed] — IEEE MA-L; prnewswire.co.uk

Company status

defunct — entered creditors' voluntary liquidation 21 June 2017; liquidator Paul Appleton, David Rubin & Partners, London [Confirmed] — thegazette.co.uk/notice/2812911

Industry

pharmaceutical medicine authentication (anti-counterfeiting / serialization for the EU Falsified Medicines Directive) [Confirmed] — prnewswire.co.uk; cbinsights.com

Company background

operated a real-time service authenticating serialized prescription medicines via 2D data-matrix barcode scanning at the point of dispense; cited reach of 24,000+ pharmacy dispensing points and 3.3B+ packages authenticated across multiple European countries [Confirmed] — prnewswire.co.uk

Device types

pharmacy-side authentication terminals — standalone laptop + 2D barcode scanner connecting wirelessly to Aegate's UK authentication repository; the OUI most plausibly covers the NIC in those bundled terminals (Aegate was a software/services provider, not a device manufacturer)

[Likely] — imedpub.com (Austrian hospital-pharmacy FMD study); prnewswire.co.uk

Security context

sector-specific authentication terminals used inside regulated pharmacy/hospital dispensing environments over wireless/internet links to a central UK repository. No public CVEs/exploits/advisories found for Aegate hardware; documented concerns are repository latency and wireless reliability, not device vulnerabilities. 00:16:57 MACs outside a pharmacy/hospital setting are anomalous

[Likely] — imedpub.com

No-date note

IEEE publishes NO OUI registration date. The "2005-11-04" date on third-party tools (e.g. maclookup.app) is a database artifact and must NOT be recorded as an IEEE fact [Confirmed] — maclookup.app

Allocated date

Unknown (IEEE does not publish OUI assignment dates) [Unknown]