Mobile Operator Consortium in Latin America Kicks Off Major Stadium Wi-Fi Initiative with Ruckus Wireless

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Ruckus Wireless, Inc. (NYSE: RKUS) announced today that it has been selected by a consortium of four Latin America mobile network operators, including Claro, Oi, Telefonica, and TIM, to supply advanced indoor/outdoor Smart Wi-Fi products and technology that will be used as the foundation for offering pervasive, high-speed wireless access within two of Brazil's largest soccer stadiums: Estadio Nacional de Brasilia (formerly known as Estadio Mane Garrincha), a 71,000-seat stadium in Brasilia, Brazil's federal capital, and Arena Octavio Mangabeira (also known as Arena Fonte Nova), a 50,433-seat stadium located in Salvador, the largest city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the Northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia.

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Comba Telecom Systems, a leading supplier of infrastructure and wireless enhancement solutions to mobile operators and enterprises, will deploy, operate and manage the Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi infrastructure on behalf of the consortium.

To ensure reliable, high-performance Wi-Fi throughout the two stadiums, including all outdoor seating areas and indoor concourses, Comba is deploying over 360 Ruckus ZoneFlex™ indoor and outdoor access points (APs), with over 200 in Estadio Nacional de Brasilia.  For the outdoor seating areas of Estadio Nacional de Brasilia, Comba has chosen 96 Ruckus ZoneFlex 7782-N APs, and 45 Ruckus ZoneFlex 7762-S APs.

For Wi-Fi coverage in the stadium's indoor concourses and other enclosed areas, Comba is deploying 72 Ruckus ZoneFlex 7982 indoor access points, one of the industry's highest capacity, highest performing three-stream APs designed for carriers and enterprises requiring increased wireless performance and capacity, particularly within high-density environments.

For the Arena Octavio Mangabeira, Comba is deploying a combination of over 150 indoor and outdoor Ruckus ZoneFlex APs, including 31 Ruckus ZoneFlex 7782-N, 62 Ruckus ZoneFlex 7762-S, and six Ruckus ZoneFlex 7762 omni-directional outdoor APs, and 52 Ruckus ZoneFlex 7982 indoor APs.

Comba is managing both the Estadio Nacional de Brasilia and Arena Octavio Mangabeira networks with Ruckus ZoneDirector™ 5000 controllers—highly scalable, high-end wireless LAN (WLAN) controllers that support up to 20,000 clients each, 1,000 APs and 2,048 WLANs—in combination with the Ruckus FlexMaster™ service management platform.

These Brazilian stadium Smart Wi-Fi deployments are further evidence of the huge growth of Wi-Fi within the region. According to a recent report by IDC, Latin America experienced 38.8% year-over-year growth in 2Q13, the strongest growth worldwide compared to other regions.

"In high-density environments like these, it's imperative we deploy Wi-Fi technology that we know can handle an extremely high number of concurrent client connections," said Patrik Westfalk, managing director, Comba Telecom Caribbean and Latin America.  "After careful examination of the available Wi-Fi technology on the market, we found that Ruckus provided a true carrier-class solution designed for this high-density application – with devices capable of supporting hundreds of simultaneous users."

Kicking Things Up a Notch with Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi

Unlike conventional Wi-Fi solutions, Ruckus access points uniquely integrate a proprietary Smart Antenna system that features Ruckus BeamFlex™ adaptive antenna technology to adapt Wi-Fi signals to where they are needed within a given area.

Ruckus ZoneFlex 7782-N and ZoneFlex 7762-S APs are ideal for offloading data traffic from congested 3G cellular networks, providing dual-band (2.4/5 GHz) Wi-Fi access for mobile devices.  Additionally, Ruckus ZoneFlex access points can be quickly and easily deployed through the use of Ruckus SmartMesh™ Networking, which eliminates the requirement to run Ethernet cabling to every Wi-Fi access point.  With SmartMesh Networking enabled, Ruckus access points automatically establish a resilient wireless connection between themselves while providing user access to nearby clients.

The Ruckus ZoneFlex 7782-N is the industry's first 802.11n outdoor access point featuring a specialized 30-degree narrow beam antenna array that focuses the Wi-Fi signals to a specific area. The ZoneFlex 7782-N was designed to address the needs of very high-density deployments such as stadiums like Estadio Nacional de Brasilia, where tens of thousands of people are in close proximity to each other and most are carrying mobile data devices of some sort. Stadiums are among the most challenging wireless environments imaginable and are ideally suited to Wi-Fi technology. High-density best practices usually call for a large number of APs to get the needed capacity, with care taken to limit co-channel interference. The narrow beam antenna in the ZoneFlex 7782-N is able to focus RF energy into a specific area, which greatly reduces co-channel interference while increasing network performance.

The Ruckus ZoneFlex 7762-S is one of the industry's first outdoor access points featuring a sectorized Smart Antenna array that integrates Ruckus BeamFlex adaptive antenna technology developed to deliver stronger Wi-Fi signals at longer distances to maximize client performance.

ABOUT RUCKUS WIRELESS
Headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, Ruckus Wireless, Inc. (NYSE: RKUS) is a global supplier of advanced wireless systems for the rapidly expanding mobile Internet infrastructure market. The company offers a wide range of indoor and outdoor "Smart Wi-Fi" products to mobile carriers, broadband service providers, and corporate enterprises, and has approximately 27,300 end-customers worldwide. Ruckus technology addresses Wi-Fi capacity and coverage challenges caused by the ever-increasing amount of traffic on wireless networks due to accelerated adoption of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Ruckus invented and has patented state-of-the-art wireless voice, video, and data technology innovations, such as adaptive antenna arrays that extend signal range, increase client data rates, and avoid interference, providing consistent and reliable distribution of delay-sensitive multimedia content and services over standard 802.11 Wi-Fi. For more information, visit http://www.ruckuswireless.com.

BeamFlex, FlexMaster, Ruckus, Ruckus Wireless, SmartMesh, ZoneDirector, and ZoneFlex are trademarks of Ruckus Wireless, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other product or company names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Media Contacts
Mark Priscaro
Ruckus Wireless
[email protected]
+1 925-367-5505

Ken Man
Comba Telecom Systems
[email protected]
+852-2116-6024

SOURCE Ruckus Wireless, Inc.