ruckus

Ruckus Wireless sues Netgear over WiFi patents

Thu, 08 May 2008 06:59:55 -0400

Ruckus Wireless, which recently introduced its SmartMesh WiFi equipment for the enterprise market, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Netgear. Ruckus alleges that in the development of Netgear's RangeMax WPN 824v3 wireless router, Netgear infringed on two WiFi patents having to do with intelligent and adaptable WiFi antenna arrays like those developed by Ruckus.

Ruckus and Netgear entered into a technology licensing agreement back in 2005 under which Ruckus developed the underlying technology with in the Netgear RangeMax 824v1 and v2 wireless routers, which were the predecessors to the RangeMax 824v3 at issue. Ruckus says the resulting hardware and software technology developed for Netgear was owned and patented by Ruckus and Netgear never paid royalties on this latest version or asked for permission to release it.

Ruckus is seeking a permanent injunction against Netgear and Rayspan as well as damages and royalties.

To find out more about Ruckus Wireless' lawsuit against Netgear:
- check out this release

Related articles:
Ruckus makes aggressive push into enterprise WiFi
Ruckus Wireless named to Fierce 15 list

Ruckus makes aggressive push into enterprise WiFi

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:59:56 -0400

Ruckus Wireless is taking aim at the enterprise WiFi market, competing head to head with the likes of Cisco, Aruba and Meru with the introduction of SmartMesh--a WiFi meshing technology that the company says enables enterprises to deploy WiFi networks in half the time and half the cost to get three times the performance of typical WLANs.

Ruckus, most known for its WiFi platform that delivers IPTV, has been playing in the mid-market enterprise market for some time with a self configurable WiFi product designed for enterprises that lack extensive IT staffs. Now the company is moving up to compete with bigger WiFi enterprise players with a new class of WLANs that self-organize, self-optimize and self-heal, eliminating the costly cabling to every WiFi access point and complex RF planning, according to the company. Ruckus' SmartMesh technology includes the company's in-house developed smart antenna technology.

"During these economic times, systems like ours become more palatable and enterprises are becoming more willing to use them even though they haven't heard of us," said David Callisch, vice president of marketing with Ruckus.

Ruckus says the cost of a typical 500-user WLAN using the industry's most popular enterprise 802.11g WLAN systems is approximately $35,000. Ruckus' SmartMesh solution with 802.11n technology is under $15,000, says the company.

Lodgian, one of the largest independent owners and operators of full-service hotels in the United States, is among the first companies to deploy the Ruckus SmartMesh and 802.11n solutions.

For more about Ruckus' new SmartMesh technology:
- read this release

Related article:
Ruckus Wireless named to Fierce 15 list

Ruckus enters 802.11n fray

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:59:53 -0400

Ruckus Wireless introduced enterprise WiFi equipment based on the 802.11n draft standard but only for the 2.4 GHz band, and not the 5 GHz band. Most vendors are manufacturing dual-band equipment for use in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, betting that the enterprise WiFi market will move to the 5 GHz band.

Ruckus announced the ZoneFlex 7942 access point that uses the company's smart antenna array. The AP can be used as a hotspot or as part of the ZoneFlex wireless LAN system.

For more about Ruckus' 802.11n AP:
- read this report from Techworld

Related articles:
Enterprise vendors put pre-802.11n stakes in the ground Editorial
Survey says enterprises interested in 802.11n Report

ALSO NOTED: Ruckus shows off IPTV feeds via 802.11n access point; TransTelecom to deploy WiMAX in Bulgaria; and much more...

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:59:51 -0500

> Ruckus showed off an 802.11n access point capable of transmitting IPTV feeds around the home. Article

> Bulgarian operator TransTelecom is deploying a commercial WiMAX network operating in the 3.5 GHz band. Article

> Aircell, which plans to provide in-flight WiFi and 3G services, has chosen Martin Dawes Systems to provide customer care for the company. Release

And Finally... A security expert explains why he leaves his own WiFi network unsecured. Article

SPOTLIGHT: Creative chaos at Ruckus

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 19:01:32 -0500

Selia Lo, Ruckus CEO, had already made her millions at Nortel and was officially "retired" when, in late 2002, she thought she wanted another challenge and signed on with Ruckus as an investor and CEO (you may recall that when she joined the company, it was incubated as "Video 54'' at Sequoia Capital). Ruckus cofounder Bill Kish likens Lo's leadership and drive to "particles bouncing in random directions. It fosters creativity. But sometimes it's a bit chaotic." Interview

Draft 2.0 of 802.11n sent out for approval

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:01:37 -0500

The 802.11 working group (with just five abstentions) has agreed on a Draft 2.0 of the 802.11n WiFi specifications and sent the draft document to the entire membership of the IEEE for approval. If a majority of the members approve, Draft 2.0 will form the basis for the final 802.11n spec (technology analyst Glenn Fleishman notes: "The odds are about zero at this point for any changes that will involve anything but firmware upgrades as there will be an entire entrenched industry for Draft 2.0-based products"). The standard's theoretical speed is about 600 Mbps, but in reality we should expect something more on the order of 200 Mbps, which is twice the speed of wired-based Ethernet and about four times the speed of 802.11g.

The speed is telling. In this year's CES, Ruckus Wireless demoed its draft 802.11n equipment which simultaneously streamed 1080p video to a couple of TV sets while also streaming standard-definition video to other devices. Just imagine transmitting HD content from one device to another without requiring coaxial cable or Cat 5e wire.

Several companies have rushed "draft N" or pre-802.11n gear to market, among them Dell, Linksys, Belkin and D-Link. Indeed, the wave of draft-N gear available has moved the otherwise staid Wi-Fi Alliance to take the unprecedented move of having a two-stage certifying process: By March, the Alliance will certify products as being compliant with Draft 2.0. When the spec is finalized later this year or in early 2008, the Alliance will certify products as fully 802.11n compliant.

The interest in the new standard has been intense, as evidenced by the fact that after Draft 1.0 was released in early 2006, the IEEE Task Group N was buried by an avalanche of more than 12,000 comments from the public. Group members said that was about six times more than what they expected.

The final ratification is expected around October 2008, but the spec will be finalized around January 2008.

For more on the state of Draft 2.0 802.11n:
- see Ephraim Scwartz's InfoWorld column
- see Eric Bangeman's Ars Technica report

ALSO: Owners of Apple computers with 802.11n-capable hardware would be required to pay a nominal fee of $1.99 for enabler software to let them use the faster connectivity. This comes after the company introduced the new AirPort Extreme wireless networking base station. This device supports the draft of the IEEE's forthcoming 802.11n fast WiFi standard. Report

Ruckus Wireless shows off new Smart N

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:01:33 -0500

I remember a WiFi event in Boston a couple of years back in which a speaker from Jupiter Research insisted on calling the home network an "über-network"--meaning, I gathered, that it would consist of several technologies (WiFi, Bluetooth, UWB, ZigBee, etc.) all working smoothly and effectively together, each making its own contribution to the wireless home. Whether or not it works like this, the wireless home network, making it possible for HDTV, data, digital voice and music streams to be beamed around the home, will soon be here.

If Fierce 15 winner Ruckus Wireless has a say in the matter, the wireless home will be based on the 802.11n standard--more specifically, on Ruckus's new Smart N technology. The company says that its version of the yet-to-be-ratified standard effectively addresses many of the problems which have hobbled current 802.11n devices. "This is the killer application that consumers and carriers really care about and this is what we're demonstrating to the world," says Selina Lo, Ruckus president and CEO.

The company insists that its Smart-N system boosts performance maximums from about 54 Mbps of current generation WiFi to 600 Mbps (well, this is on paper; Red Herring reports that real-world speed is about 70 Mbps). The company correctly notes that speed alone is not enough, though. To deliver high-quality, consistent transmission, the company says that "an adaptable WiFi system that automatically tunes a myriad of new 802.11n parameters and controls RF signals to ensure predictable performance anywhere in the home has become the new industry benchmark."

Ruckus' system includes the company's BeamFlex-N antenna system and SmartCast, a wireless IPTV-ready QoS technology to improve bandwidth based on each incoming packet, with 3x3 XSPAN 802.11n silicon technology from Atheros. Ruckus plans to begin shipping of Smart WiFi 802.11 in the second half of 2007. The new solution will be demonstrated at the January Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

For more on Ruckus's Smart N:
- see this Red Herring report
- and see company's press release

Ruckus shows home WLAN control system

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 20:01:34 -0400

These are heady days for Sunnyvale, CA-based Ruckus Wireless. Four examples: The company has released a home-WiFi management system which brings to the home many of the strengths of similar systems in the enterprise; the company has also raised $16 million from three investors, among them Motorola, long-rumored to be eyeing Ruckus as a possible acquisition target; and then, Ruckus has been selected by Belge and Czech service providers to distribute its MediaFlex in-home wireless system; this latest deals brings the number of service providers which partner with Ruckus to more than 50.

The company's MediaFlex NG WLAN management device is what more and more homes need. What with the increasing competition for WiFi bandwidth at the home by WiFi phones, mobile PCs, Bluetooth-equipped gear, MP3 players, gaming devices, there is a need to bring order into the chaos. Ruckus takes control of the bandwidth so IPTV subscribers may use the available wireless bandwidth to stream TV to multiple TV sets in the home. Service providers may use MediaFlex NG to prioritize WiFi traffic, perform inventory audits on wireless devices and obtain performance logs to determine which devices are using the available bandwidth, and the amount of interference on the WiFi connection.

The MediaFlex NG system comes with a five-port multimedia 802.11b/g router (for $159) and a one-port multimedia adapter (for $99). The $16 million round brings the total raised by the two-year-old company to $30 million.

For more on MediaFlex:
- see this press release

Work on 802.11e concluded

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 20:01:39 -0400

The IEEE 802.11 Working Group has concluded its work on 802.11e specification. The standard bolsters the MAC layer of 802.11 chips so they can set traffic priorities for video, audio and voice on WiFi networks. It is not as if vendors can take full advantage of the new specifications right now as this will have to wait on word from the Wi-Fi Alliance. The Alliance has been testing a subset of the 802.11e's draft specification, informally referred to as WMM (for WiFi Multimedia), for a year now. Observers note that the Alliance took a similar approach to WPA, which is a subset of 802.11i. When 11i was finalized, the Alliance updated its test to WPA2 to accommodate the final version of 802.11i.

Yes, 802.11e makes video transmission over WiFi networks easier, but companies active in the consumer market, where wireless video will be most in demand, say it does not do enough because it addresses a problem which is relatively easy to solve (that is, offering rather rudimentary hardware prioritization for differentiation of some classes of service). Ruckus Wireless' Bill Kish argues that the more immediate problem for consumers of video and voice over wireless is link stabilization, something 802.11n would address. Ruckus' BeamFlex technology (mixing seven smart antennas and 127 antenna signals) also addresses this problem.

For more on on 802.11e:
- see Eric Griffith's wi-fiplanet report