Ruckus pushes for WiFi based broadband

FORGET 3G, WIMAX OR LTE, WiFi based broadband is the most cost effective way of getting basic Internet services to developing urban environments where there is little or no fixed line access, according to Ruckus Wireless.

The company has used its work in Mesh and beamforming technology to develop an end-to-end WiFi based system to give service providers a way of easily bringing wireless broadband access (WBA) to those areas where other forms of connectivity are over contended or not feasible.

"Service providers everywhere now view WiFi as an essential service offering," said Selina Lo, president and chief executive officer of Ruckus Wireless.

"In emerging geographies where there remain huge opportunities for broadband access, rolling out fixed line or traditional wireless broadband technologies is often not possible or cost-prohibitive."

The Ruckus WBA system includes outdoor mesh access points, customer premises equipment (CPE), a new line of smart WiFi backhaul systems and system-wide remote management.

According to Niv Hanigal, director of product management for Ruckus this system is ideal for developing and emerging markets and is significantly cheaper to deploy and run than other wireless data access technologies. As well as having a lower cost-per-bit than competing systems, it also has none of the spectrum or device compatibility issues associated with them.

The shorter range of WiFi signals means that there are more links in the chain and a greater number of access points are required, however the company stressed that these are easily managed remotely and cheap and simple to fix or replace when something goes wrong.

The Ruckus WBA system is comprised of the ZoneFlex 7731, a new high gain 5GHz 802.11n point-to-point device to handle the backhaul, either ZF 7762 dual band 802.11n or ZF 2741 802.11g meshed outdoor access points and MediaFlex 2200 indoor gateways.

This combination is then all centrally managed through the company's Remote WiFi Service Management application, which can let network administrators manage and control a network spanning multiple cities, ten of thousands of access points and hundred of thousands of clients, Ruckus says.

The system is already being deployed in countries such as India and Malaysia, but could also be a viable option for rural areas in the UK where current broadband access is as best slow and unreliable and at worst non-existent.

Although the limitations of WiFi, particularly as a medium for backhaul, means that this will never compete with the likes of fibre access or LTE, for those scenarios where these are not available, Hanigal reckons it can provide a solid entry level broadband connection to millions of users who had little or no connectivity previously.

With the ZF 7731 selling for a list price of $2,398 per pair, the 7762 access points going for $2,000 a pop and the MF 2200 gateways costing $159 each, you'll still need to outlay a couple of grand to get up an running, but Ruckus argues this is still around five times cheaper than what it would cost to get up and running with an equivalent WiMax setup. µ