Ruckus Wireless specializes in indoor and outdoor 802.11 Wireless LAN hardware and controllers. The company prides itself on its smart Wi-Fi technology, which--unlike traditional omnidirectional access points--uses an intelligent, high-gain directional antenna system to extend the range of Wi-Fi signals and adapt to environmental changes.

Ruckus is based in Sunnyvale, Calif. and, despite being a relatively young company, has managed to ship over 2 million units worldwide since 2005. Due to the technical nature of the questions, I sent out the list of questions via email ahead of time to David Callisch, who is the VP of Marketing at Ruckus. This was followed-up by a phone call to clarify some points.

FCIO: We hear frequent complaints these days about the dismal quality of Wi-Fi services at large exhibitions or news conferences. Just how scalable is Wi-Fi?

Callisch: The key to supporting a large number of concurrent users isn't about how many users an AP will support at any given time but rather how well the Wi-Fi system can maximize limited RF spectrum resources. The two essential issues are: 1) Get users on and off the medium as fast as possible and 2) avoid interference which creates packet loss and causes retransmissions. To do this Wi-Fi systems must have control over the radio frequency domain and the signal path used to communicate to clients; most however do not.

Conventional Wi-Fi systems make use of omnidirectional antennas that simply blast out Wi-Fi transmissions in all directions and they cannot adapt to changes in the environment. Newer, more advanced Wi-Fi systems are taking advantage of miniaturized adaptive antenna arrays that focus RF energy and steer said RF energy over faster, less noisy signal paths. This will minimize packet loss as well as the time expended on the Wi-Fi medium, thus creating a more efficient use of the spectrum. 

To support high density environments, enterprises should combine adaptive antenna technology with other important capabilities such as band steering, client load balancing, and airtime fairness. The combination of these capabilities goes a long way toward supporting a large number of simultaneous clients that can be found in lecture halls, hotel conferences and stadiums.

FCIO: What are the type challenges that enterprises, with around 500 users, face in deploying Wi-Fi? 

Callisch: Time and time again, the top five issues we see enterprises struggle with are issues such as:

• The inability to achieve consistent performance at range,
• Unstable client connections,
• Spotty Wi-Fi coverage,
• Coping with an ever-changing RF environment, and
• System complexity.

The vast majority of enterprise-class Wi-Fi systems focus on providing fancy management capabilities once users get connected. However they first must get connected! Users only care about reliability, speed and security. Security has arguably been addressed with WPA2 and 802.1x within the enterprise. The rest remain open issues.

FCIO: What is one common misconception of what Wi-Fi can or cannot do?

Callisch: That Wi-Fi security is still questionable--it's not. In fact, Wi-Fi traffic is often more secure than wired traffic because all traffic is encrypted--it's not typically encrypted on the wired. The most advanced encryption, such as AES, provides symmetric-key encryption with three block ciphers, AES-128, AES-192 and AES-256. Each of these ciphers has a 128-bit block size, with key sizes of 128, 192 and 256 bits. In addition to protecting data through encryption, users must typically authenticate themselves before using the network. This combination has made Wi-Fi networks virtually impenetrable to 99 percent of the world.

FCIO: Do you have any recommendation or comments on the AAA front?

Callisch: Not really. Just get something simple, simple, simple to deploy. AAA can be a bear if you're not familiar with the world of commands needed to correctly implement these systems.

FCIO: What kind of competitive advantages does Ruckus Wireless offer over other enterprise Wi-Fi vendors?

Callisch: Ruckus Wireless offers the most consistent Wi-Fi performance over longer distances using fewer APs to cover any given area. In a typical environment where you would need 100 Cisco access points, it would require 50 or 60 Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi APs that come with a less expensive MSRP to begin with. This equates to lower capital expenditure and operating expense for enterprises looking to maximize their IT dollars.

Another important differentiation is simplicity. Our WLAN systems were designed to be installed in less than half the time of a Meru, Aruba or HP WLAN system and at half the cost. Our APs can be deployed in smart mesh mode which doesn't require running Ethernet cabling to every device. This cuts down costs considerably and dramatically reduces deployment time.

But perhaps the most important difference is the adaptive nature of Ruckus technology. As Wi-Fi become more pervasive; interference, obstacles and moving clients wreak havoc on performance. The Ruckus system was developed with this in mind and is able to constantly adapt to the ever-changing nature of enterprise environments.

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