Ruckus Wireless today introduced a complete, end-to-end managed, wireless broadband access (WBA) solution with a “build-as-you-grow” model for urban environments.
Ruckus claims it can deliver a broadband cheaper because it requires fewer access points through “beam forming” and eliminates the start up and deployment cost of WiMAX using unlicensed WiFi, built on their beamforming Smart Wi-Fi technologies.
Ruckus technology combines 802.11n with dynamic beamforming to overcome interference problems that have plagued many outdoor Wi-Fi networks. It also enables more efficient spatial reuse by varying the direction of each packet transmission, so adjacent mesh APs often can transmit simultaneously on the same channel thereby maximizing network capacity.
The Ruckus solution includes customer premise equipment, meshed Wi-Fi access points, high-speed backhaul and local and remote Wi-Fi management.
The company says one square kilometer of area could cost $500,000 to equip using WiMax gear, but only $100,000 using their Wireless Broadband Access (WBA) system. Their vision of municipal wireless would not provide “blanket” coverage. Instead it would concentrate on dense user populations.
Ruckus Smart Mesh networking allows APs to be aggregated over gigabit Ethernet for capacity without the overhead of additional mesh hops. APs can be added quickly to increase capacity as business grows, enabling providers to:
Ruckus says they’ve been testing the system in two large rollouts. WiNet, a leading broadband operator in Asia Pacific, expects to deploy 4,000 nodes by the end of 2010 and is targeting to attract 250,000 subscribers by the end of 2010. In Mumbai, Tikona is serving neighborhood clusters of high-rise apartment buildings. The company installs Ruckus access points on poles sticking out from the sides of buildings near the top and points them down at a 30-degree angle. For subscribers on the upper floors, the Wi-Fi adapters in their laptops are all they need to connect to the network. Those living on lower floors need a Ruckus CPE unit that incorporates the smart antenna technology to connect reliably.
The Ruckus WBA solution includes the following products:
- Meshed Access Points: The ZoneFlex 7762, a dual-band 802.11n Smart Wi-Fi outdoor access point and ZoneFlex 2741, an 802.11g Smart Wi-Fi outdoor access point.
- Customer Premises Equipment: The MediaFlex 2200, a purpose-built wireless gateway that reliably extends Wi-Fi signals indoors.
- High-Speed Wireless Backhaul: The ZoneFlex 7731, a new point-to-point 802.11n (5GHz) backhaul system that features a dual-polarized directional antenna with 14dBi of gain and a 30º beam width, and dynamic, performance-based channel selection, optimized for noisy environments
- Remote Wi-Fi Service Management: The FlexMaster management platform allows network administrators to manage and control a network spanning multiple cities, ten of thousands of Access Points, and hundred of thousands of clients.
According to a recent Gartner report entitled “Consumer Broadband, Global Penetration Rates and Growth Prospects” more than half (54% or 95 million) of the worldwide growth in consumer broadband connections will come from the emerging markets such as South East Asia, India, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe from 2007 to 2012.
The new Ruckus products are available now. The ZoneFlex 7731, a point-to-point bridge, is used for backhaul connections, and priced at $2,398 per pair. Two APs, called the ZF2741 for 802.11g, and ZF7762 for 802.11n, sell for $899 and $1,999 respectively. A customer premise wireless gateway, to extend Wi-Fi signals indoors, sells for $159.
Management software used in wireless zones is sold in rack units starting at $1,200 and systems management software for central network operations centers starts at $5,000.
Ruckus will likely compete with other outdoor 802.11n products from Cisco, Meru Networks, Aruba Networks and Meraki, which has a $1500 802.11n system.
