Press Releases

Ruckus Wireless Smart Wi-Fi Hits 1,000,000 Unit Shipment Mark

Ruckus MediaFlex Quickly Becomes De Facto Standard for Whole Home Wireless Multimedia Distribution with More than 125 Broadband Operators Around the World

SUNNYVALE, CA, January 22, 2007 – Ruckus Wireless today announced that over its last fiscal year, ending December 31, 2006, it shipped 100,000 Ruckus MediaFlex systems to more than 125 broadband operators around the world. Furthermore, since introducing its Smart Wi-Fi technology in 2005, over 1,000,000 BeamFlex-equipped access points have been sold.

Ruckus is credited with innovating a new class of Smart Wi-Fi multimedia products based on its BeamFlex smart antenna technology. BeamFlex is patent-pending technology that automatically steers Wi-Fi signals around interference, constantly picking the best path through the air for traffic. This provides extended range of Wi-Fi signals and glitch-free whole-home streaming of IP-based video, voice and data over standard 802.11g.

“Nothing speaks to a company’s viability more loudly than having real customers spending real money on real products,” said Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus Wireless. “The remarkable adoption rate of our products and technologies validates the ‘no new wires’ mandate from consumers everywhere. We believe that Wi-Fi will cover the globe, letting consumers access any content type anywhere, any time. We saw the need to make this free medium as reliable and industrial strength as cellular networks. Now we have proven that it can be done,” commented Lo.

Personally recognized in 2006 for Individual Achievement in the Wireless Industry by the Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards, Lo noted that the European and Asia Pacific markets for triple play services continue to drive adoption of the company’s Smart Wi-Fi products.

“We believe what’s happening in Europe and Asia Pacific is the tip of the iceberg and a harbinger of what we’ll see in an even bigger way in North America in 2007 and 2008,” Lo concluded.

In its fiscal year ending December 31, 2006, Ruckus Wireless revenue increased more than five-fold from its previous year through a combination of licensing agreements and sales of its own branded MediaFlex triple play systems and MetroFlex metro Wi-Fi access gateways.

The growth of the company comes from several colliding trends such as the increased use of broadband access, the convergence of computer networks and consumer electronics, and the race by broadband operators to deliver more multimedia services (such as IPTV and managed home networks) over broadband to consumers.

Ruckus Wireless milestones for 2006 include:

  • Signing more than 125 broadband operators including providers in Belgium, Hong Kong, Czech Republic, Ireland, Finland, Slovenia and dozens of rural providers in the U.S.
  • Introducing five new products addressing the triple play and metro wireless markets
  • Raising $18M in 3rd round financing from some of the world’s leading companies including Motorola Ventures and T-Online Venture Fund
  • Opening a new research and development facility in Taipei
  • Winning 10 industry awards for Wi-Fi innovation including being recognized by the World Economic Forum as a 2007 Technology Pioneer

Founded in mid 2004, Ruckus Wireless spent nearly two years incubating its Smart Wi-Fi technology before shipping its first licensed product in the second quarter of 2005 and the first Ruckus-branded product in the fourth quarter of 2005. Smart Wi-Fi makes wireless LANs more stable and reliable by combining smart antenna technology with sophisticated quality of service techniques and remote service management. The Ruckus BeamFlex smart antenna enables Wi-Fi signals to reach farther and at higher speeds by automatically steering Wi-Fi signals around interference from common household devices such as microwave ovens, cordless phones and Bluetooth devices.