School Districts Move Quickly to Smarter 802.11n Wi-Fi from Ruckus Wireless for Higher Speeds at Lower Cost

Company Unveils “Smarter Wi-Fi for Education” Matching Donation Program, Offering One 802.11n AP for Every 802.11n AP Purchased

SUNNYVALE, CA, October 27, 2008 – Ruckus Wireless™ today announced that it has been selected by fourteen school districts across the country – including Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD), Schenectady Public Schools, Tonasket School District and Holland Christian Public Schools - to supply state-of-the art Smart wireless LAN (WLAN) systems based on the emerging 802.11n high-speed wireless standard.

In addition, Ruckus Wireless unveiled its “Smarter Wi-Fi for Education” matching donation program that provides one free Ruckus ZoneFlex™ 802.11n wireless access point (AP) for each one purchased (terms and conditions apply).

“Nowhere is reliable and higher speed Wi-Fi needed more than within the education market where the environment is fluid, information is rich and demands for consistent connectivity have skyrocketed,” said Mary Phillips, director of technology at SCUSD. “As a school district, we wanted a unified wireless infrastructure that was flexible and didn’t lock us into any particular architecture.”

The Ruckus ZoneFlex 802.11n system is ideal for affordable next generation WLAN deployments because it provides a collection of unique capabilities not found in any other WLAN solution such as:

Smart Mesh networking that allows school districts to extend and provide Wi-Fi connectivity to areas (such as temporary classrooms) where Ethernet cabling doesn’t exist,
Smart antenna and adaptive RF routing technology that provides long-range signals that are automatically steered around interference and obstacles – letting districts deploy fewer APs,
Flexible deployment options that give school districts the ability to deploy APs in standalone mode, lightweight mode or meshed but all managed as a unified WLAN system,
Advanced remote WLAN management that gives school districts complete visibility into and control over discrete school WLANs and access points (meshed and non-mesh) over any IP infrastructure,
Distributed forwarding architecture that allows remote APs to be managed by a centralized controller at the district office over a high-speed Ethernet WAN, saving bandwidth and simplifying infrastructure topology.

Santa Clara Unified School District Outfits 25 Schools with 802.11n

After a four-month evaluation of competitive enterprise WLAN offerings, SCUSD is replacing its current 802.11g Wi-Fi network with the Ruckus ZoneFlex 802.11n “Smart Wireless LAN” system.

Under the agreement and as part of a multi-year project, Ruckus Wireless is supplying centrally managed Smart WLAN systems as well as indoor and outdoor Smart Wi-Fi access points that SCUSD is installing throughout 25 elementary, middle and high schools as well as adult education facilities and district offices (see separate release “Santa Clara Unified School District Standardizes on Ruckus Wireless ZoneFlex Smart 802.11n Wireless LANs”).

Santa Clara is deploying redundant Ruckus ZoneDirector ZD3250 WiFi controllers in their district office to manage remote ZoneFlex ZF7942 802.11n/g/b Wi-Fi access points in remote schools. All schools in the district are connected to a Gigabit Ethernet WAN.

SCUSD operates 16 elementary schools, four middle schools, three high schools, and one K-12 school in Santa Clara, California as well as parts of San Jose and Sunnyvale. SCUSD supports 15,000 students and 1,000 staff throughout the district and expects to add another 10,000 students by 2025.

District-Wide Wi-Fi Initiative Drives Schenectady Schools to 802.11n

The largest district in the capital region of New York, Schenectady City School District has selected the Ruckus ZoneFlex 802.11n Smart WLAN system for its next-generation Wi-Fi infrastructure. Schenectady is replacing a legacy HP 802.11g WLAN with advanced 802.11n equipment to support over 12,000 students and staff across 22 elementary, middle and high schools.

“When you combine the explosion of information and learning tools that are now online with the myriad of mobile devices available, Wi-Fi is no longer a nice-to-have at school,” said Larry Murphy, Chief Technology Officer at Schenectady City School District, a leader in the adoption of advanced technology for education. “Advances in the speed and reliability of Wi-Fi, with 802.11n, have opened the door to a more productive educational experience as well as more efficient school operations.”

Schenectady selected the Smart WLAN system from Ruckus Wireless after a side-by-side performance comparison with Meru. “We found the Ruckus ZoneFlex system delivered the best price/performance of any enterprise wireless LAN system in its class,” said Murphy. “The Ruckus 802.11n gear is set apart because of its adaptive RF routing for better reliability, smart meshing for extending the Wi-Fi infrastructure where Ethernet can’t be found and the ability to uniquely support streaming IP-based video. No other wireless LAN system had such a collection of capabilities.”

Holland Christian School District Upgrades to 802.11n

Located in Holland, Michigan and founded at the turn of the century, Holland Christian Schools has also upgraded its school district from 802.11g to 802.11n with the Ruckus ZoneFlex Smart WLAN system. Holland Christian has begun deploying 75 802.11n APs across its elementary, middle and high school facilities along with a centralized ZoneFlex 3250 Smart WLAN controller.

Holland has implemented a 1:1 computing program (1 laptop per student) and supports over 1,500 laptops at any given time. Over 95 percent of the user population uses Apple MacBook or MacBook Pros’. “If I don’t have wireless, it pretty much makes school not work,” said Tim Kamps, Director of Technology at Holland Christian Schools, a private, non-profit school district in Holland, Michigan. Holland’s WLAN requirements included four essential criteria:

full-featured Web-based control with remote access;
reliable wireless meshing to extend Wi-Fi to remote classrooms and facilities that don’t have Ethernet cabling;
simplified guest access for visitors and contractors that can be administered by anyone and provides unique and timed passkeys to each guest;
adaptive signal control that automatically deals with obstacles and RF interference.

“The Ruckus ZoneFlex system was the only WLAN solution we could find that provided a real solution to all of these problems and at such a compelling price point that we were able to immediately upgrade our entire infrastructure to 802.11n,” said Kamps.

Holland Christian had deployed Apple Airport APs around the campus and found that managing these devices was an increasing problem. Moreover the network was slow, connections would frequently drop, signal strength was erratic and clients often had problems associating with the network. “There’s a lot of roaming at our schools and client distribution among APs is uneven,” said Kamps. “The Ruckus ZoneFlex system effectively eliminated the problems we had with client density, reliability and signal coverage – while giving us a higher performing WLAN, robust security and complete centralized control.”

Tonasket School District Takes Wi-Fi Where It’s Never Been Before

A rural school district located in the central part of Washington State, Tonasket School District has selected the Ruckus ZoneFlex 802.11n Smart Wireless LAN system to replace its current 802.11g Wi-Fi infrastructure. The size of Rhode Island, Tonasket School District consumes approximately 1,600 square miles supporting elementary, middle school, high school and special education students. Higher speed Wi-Fi was needed to support students, teachers, staff and visitors who required faster and more reliable Wi-Fi access for e-learning initiatives and back-office applications.

“Ninety percent of our client devices are Apple MacBook’s MacBook Pro’s and iPhones” said Hanna Kliegman, director of IT at Tonasket School District. “Because Wi-Fi is becoming an essential ingredient within the educational process, it was important for us to find a more reliable system that could deliver consistent performance at range. The Ruckus ZoneFlex system quickly bubbled to the top as a Wi-Fi system designed for this precise purpose.”

Hanna noted that “with Ruckus’ support for meshing, we can also place access points in locations that would not have been easily possible with a ‘non-meshing’ solution – due to the prohibitive cost to run Cat-5 to some challenging locations.”

Ten Additional Education Organizations Deploy Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi

In addition the following educational organizations have also switched to Ruckus: Hamilton/Benchmark School, Eaton County Schools, Littletown High School, Pittsylvania County Public Schools, Stuttgart Public School District, Arkansas City Public Schools, Putnam Country Schools, St. Clair Country Regional Educational Service Agency, Copper Country Independent School District and Knox County School District.

Matching Wi-Fi Donation Program Lets Schools Affordably Migrate to 802.11n

To help schools migrate from 802.11g to faster and more expensive 802.11n systems, Ruckus Wireless has introduced a matching 802.11n donation program called “Smarter Wi-Fi for Education.”

Under the program that runs through the end of the year, Ruckus Wireless is offering schools one free ZoneFlex 802.11n access point for each one purchased. A minimum of 20 ZoneFlex 7942s must be ordered along with the requisite ZoneDirector WLAN controllers. Other terms and conditions apply.

Ruckus Wireless currently offers the industry’s most affordable 802.11n WLAN system and the only one to integrate Smart Wi-Fi meshing and patented smart antenna technology. The combination of these Wi-Fi innovations provides longer range signals that are continuously and automatically steered around obstacles and interference to offer unprecedented wireless reliability.