Company FAQs

Who is Ruckus Wireless and what kind of company is it?

Ruckus Wireless is new class of technology company revolutionizing Wi-Fi for both the enterprise and service provider markets. Based in Sunnyvale, CA, Ruckus is credited with developing "Smart Wi-Fi." Smart Wi-Fi breaks the conventional barriers that have prevented the reliable transmission of voice, video and data over standard 802.11 technology. The company was formed in 2004 by Selina Lo, Victor Shtrom and Bill Kish.

What is Ruckus Wireless trying to do?

Ruckus is making Wi-Fi better – not necessarily faster or cheaper but more reliable. We are transforming Wi-Fi from a technology of convenience into a ubiquitous utility that can be used for much more than merely surfing the Internet. Ruckus products and technology help enterprises and carriers reduce the cost of deployment, increase the range and reliability of their Wi-Fi networks and ensure consistent performance at range.

Why the name Ruckus?

Why not? Ruckus reflects what we believe is going on in the wireless networking market: a commotion. But a good one. Ruckus is energy, a disruptive energy that, if used correctly, can be very powerful.

Think of the Berlin Wall. Or Martin Luther King's dream. That was the ultimate ruckus – a disturbance of the good kind. Either way, that's us.

We are making a commotion that is drawing the attention of people everywhere. We're wireless with an edge. That edge is our ability to develop innovative technology that speeds and steers multimedia content through the air to laptops, PDAs, phones and TVs in the most efficient way possible.

So what's the all ruckus about? It's about a new way to build Wi-Fi networks. It's freedom, choices, flexibility and options – never before available or even possible.

The ruckus is a single network for everything: voice, video and data. The ruckus is a new way to reliably distribute multimedia content to every corner of a building, home, hotel, airport or anywhere else – fast and far. Probably more than you wanted to know. You can tell we feel strongly about it.

What’s the Ruckus All About?

It’s about a new way of getting and staying connected – reliably but without wires.

At Ruckus we’ve done something that no one really thought possible: made Wi-Fi not suck.

Companies love Wi-Fi but hate the fact that its flaky and doesn’t always reach where they want it to, when they want it to. Companies just want a secure wireless network that works and doesn’t require a Ph.D to install or maintain.

Wi-Fi has been all but written it off as a reliable means to distribute voice, video AND data throughout the enterprise. This is because interference, obstacles and other RF-related things that people know nothing about (nor should they) causes dropped packets that degrade performance – making for an angry user base.

And this is a huge problem that’s only getting worse. More users with more sophisticated (and expensive) Wi-Fi devices want to do more sophisticated things over Wi-Fi like making calls, viewing videos and accessing interactive applications.

The problem is: today’s wireless LAN systems just have no way to cope with or adapt to the constant changes in the environment that screw up Wi-Fi.

We’ve changed all this.

We’re credited with developing the first and only centrally-managed Wi-Fi system smart enough to automatically adapt to these problems – delivering better range, reliability and speed. We call it “Smart Wi-Fi.”

Smart Wi-Fi combines recent advances in adaptive antenna arrays and state-of-the art quality of service technology with the best principles of centralized wireless LAN management. And it’s all brain-dead simple to use.

The result is a completely adaptive wireless LAN system that reaches farther with fewer APs, steers signals around interference and obstacles on the fly and eliminates the erratic behaviour of Wi-Fi that everyone has come to hate. Wow. Now that’s cool.

We’re definitely living up to our name.

What differentiates the company?

Three things: 1) our ability to continually route Wi-Fi signals over the best performing RF paths 2) how simple and straightforward our Wi-Fi products are to install, use and manage and 3) how affordable they are relative to anything comparable.

We are the only Wi-Fi company that routes signals over the best performing path. Period.

That’s how we’re able to make Wi-Fi reliable enough to support a streaming high-definition IP based video stream or voice over Wi-Fi phone call.

We use antenna diversity and fancy quality of service mechanisms to ensure the best possible experience for really impossible-to-support-over Wi-Fi applications. Killer coverage, consistent performance, simple to use at the lowest possible cost. That’s us.

Is the company viable?

Absolutely. We’ve got two growing lines of businesses: we sell to the world’s largest phone companies (like Belgacom, Deutsche Telekom, SwissCom and many others) as well as some of the most discerning enterprises (like Intercontinental Hotels, school districts, and hospitals).

And Ruckus is backed by some of the most prestigous investors like Sequoia Capital, Motorola Ventures, T-Ventures and Sutter Hill. We’ve raised $42 million in financing and are generating revenue hand-over-fist.