Ruckus Wireless has introduced a set of wireless routers it says will be far less expensive to install than wired LANs in commercial applications.
The company’s products – its ZoneFlex Enterprise Smart Wireless LAN (WLAN) line – combine the latest, fastest version of Wi-Fi, the 802.11n standard, with its own dynamic beamforming antenna and Automatic Interference Mitigation (AIM) technologies.
“In these economic times, enterprises are looking for practical solutions that let them keep pace with business requirements as budgets shrink,” said Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus Wireless. “For Wi-Fi, it means higher capacity, steadier coverage, more users, less maintenance, and doing it all at the lowest possible cost. ZoneFlex Enterprise achieves this, resetting the industry’s price/performance bar for smarter wireless LANs.”
The new products include:
- The ZoneFlex 7962, a dual-band 802.11n access point (AP) that can be deployed as a standalone AP or in a ZoneDirector-managed WLAN.
- The ZoneDirector 3500, a scalable Smart WLAN controller that manages 500 Ruckus ZoneFlex Smart Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n APs.
- Ruckus Smart/OS, a new application platform software supporting advanced WLAN capabilities for the ZoneDirector, such as Smart Mesh Networking and new enhancements, including WLAN groups, advanced user access controls and automatic traffic handling features.
- Enhanced FlexMaster, a Wi-Fi remote management system for ZoneDirector and ZoneFlex APs (standalone or controller-managed locally).
Ruckus estimates that the cost of delivering 10 Mbps of consistent wireless bandwidth for every user in a 5000-user organization using the two leading enterprise WLAN systems commands a per-user price (based on MSRP) of $170 to $250. The Ruckus ZoneFlex Enterprise system cuts this per-user cost to under $60, the company said, while delivering two to four times the signal range and a 100 percent to 300 percent performance improvement.
