Background

The Markets

The Mobile Internet is changing everything - propelling the global Wi-Fi market into exponential growth, both indoors and out.

Originally, Wi-Fi served as a simple, easy to use and low cost technology for “bursty” consumer data applications. However, as people attempted to apply conventional Wi-Fi to stream real-time video or access graphic-rich multimedia content — often over extended distances — problems quickly became evident. Interrupted video, dropped connections and limited range have now simply become unacceptable to enterprises, operators and their users.

Meanwhile a wave of powerful, Wi-Fi-enabled smart devices and tablet computers are flooding service provider and enterprise networks. ABI Research forecasts that by 2012, nearly 500 million dual-mode (GSM/Wi-Fi) phones will reach the market, making Wi-Fi the de facto standard for mobile connectivity.

This is driving strong growth in carrier Wi-Fi. In-Stat expects worldwide hotspots increase to over 1.2 million venues in 2015 from under 421,000 in 2010. Wi-Fi usage is also anticipated to follow a similar growth curve, increasing to 120 billion connects in 2015 from 4 billion connects in 2010.

These devices are causing users to demand more reliable, longer range and faster Wi-Fi connections and has placed tremendous new strains on enterprise WLAN networks and operator cellular infrastructure – both of which must now support more simultaneous users running more sophisticated and latency-sensitive applications across geographic areas.

Consequently, the carrier Wi-Fi market is now poised for remarkable growth as new data-hungry devices pressure traditional cellular networks. Wi-Fi is viewed as the ideal technology to complement the buildout of evolving cellular networks to solve capacity and coverage problems that can’t be addressed by expensive and limited licensed spectrum.

For Wi-Fi to become a strategic utility to support these new markets and applications, it must evolve from a best-effort technology to a deterministic one that can deliver reliable performance, extended reach and automatic adaptation to changes in the environment. Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi solutions are designed just for this purpose.

Carriers and enterprises are now using Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi products to address the next phase of wireless connectivity where reliability is critical, such as last-mile access in high-density communities, managed WLAN services and offloading data traffic from 3G/4G infrastructures.

Enterprises are using Ruckus products and technology to build more robust, adaptive and affordable wireless LAN environments within hotels, hospitals, schools, warehouses, branch offices and other locations where IT resources are sparse but the requirement for a secure and robust Wi-Fi infrastructure remains high.