Ruckus Wireless Wins Wi-Fi Contract with City of San Jose to Bring Insanely Fast and Reliable Wireless Services Downtown

SUNNYVALE, Calif. and SAN JOSE, Calif., March 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Ruckus Wireless™ (Ruckus), and its integration partner SmartWave Technologies, today announced that they have been selected by the City of San Jose to supply advanced Wi-Fi products and services for a new high-capacity, high-performance public Wi-Fi network initiative.

The new outdoor Wi-Fi network, initially being deployed in dozens of downtown locations, will cover San Jose's business district, allowing the city to offer free high-speed Wi-Fi services. The new high-speed network will be capable of supporting tens of thousands of simultaneous users and hundreds of terabytes of aggregate traffic.

In addition, the City of San Jose's new Wi-Fi network will now be able to support a myriad of new applications such as high-definition video, parking meters and digital parking guidance signs, video surveillance, and traffic signaling. The network will also play a key role in offloading mobile data traffic from congested cellular networks and will be used to backhaul data traffic to the Internet.

Expected to go live by the middle of 2012, the city's new Wi-Fi network is based on advanced Smart Wi-Fi technology developed by Sunnyvale-based Ruckus Wireless. Smart Wi-Fi uses miniaturized directional antenna arrays and innovative traffic handling techniques to extend wireless signals two to four times the distance over conventional technology. The Smart Wi-Fi technology is also unique in its ability to automatically avoid interference and obstacles that can severely degrade user performance. This results in much faster, more reliable wireless connections at longer ranges.

"As the world's leading technology center, we strive to connect those who live, work and visit San Jose with the latest and most advanced technologies that Silicon Valley has to offer," said San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed. "We see the Smart Wi-Fi network as more than simply infrastructure, but as an economic platform to attract businesses and entrepreneurs that want outdoor Internet access with the same speeds, capacity, and reliability that they enjoy indoors."

The build-out of the next-generation public Wi-Fi network is a key part of the city's long-term vision of enhancing its vibrant community and encouraging businesses and consumers to come together to enjoy downtown San Jose's retail establishments, restaurants and cafes, and arts and entertainment activities throughout the year.

In 2004, San Jose was among the first large cities in the country to provide free wireless Internet access in downtown hotspots. But since then more devices, more users and more data-hungry applications have driven the need to overhaul the legacy Wi-Fi network.

Out with the Old, In with the New

The Ruckus-powered Wi-Fi network, being designed, installed, and managed by SmartWave Technologies, one of the nation's leading wireless network integrators, replaces an older Wi-Fi network installed to provide free public access through an ad-supported model. Since its completion in 2005, the legacy Wi-Fi network only provided sporadic coverage to a few downtown parks and other parts of the city and was not well suited to sustain reliable connections for graphic-rich mobile applications and an increasing number of mobile device users in the metropolitan area.

"Our previous Wi-Fi network was based on older technology and was simply no longer a viable infrastructure for delivering the robust, high-performance service users have come to expect within Silicon Valley," said Vijay Sammeta, the city's acting Chief Information Officer. "Fast and reliable wireless connectivity is no longer negotiable – it has become table stakes when trying to attract world-class events and businesses that want to come to San Jose. Recent technology advances in wireless signal controls and smart Wi-Fi meshing made by Ruckus enable us to deliver just that."

The Ruckus-powered Smart Wi-Fi network will initially provide high-capacity wireless coverage to throughout one and a half square miles in downtown San Jose reaching from San Carlos Street to St. James Street, and from Almaden Avenue to 4th Street.

"Our plans for the network are to enable people to experience the fun musical and cultural events taking place in the city, even if they're not able to come in person," said Sammeta. "By offering live multi-cast streaming of events, people can take part in outdoor concerts and festivals from their homes or from nearby cafes and restaurants. This kind of world-class experience is what being in Silicon Valley is all about."

To provide adequate capacity and performance, the City of San Jose with SmartWave are deploying Ruckus ZoneFlex 7762 802.11n dual-band outdoor access points (APs) along with two ZoneDirector 3050 central controllers within its Network Operations Center (NOC) at City Hall.

The Wi-Fi nodes are being deployed on street lights, traffic signal poles, buildings and other points of presence and will be connected using either high-speed, multi-gigabit fiber connections or wireless mesh connections. SmartWave is also using several ZoneFlex 7731 point-to-multipoint bridges, capable of extending wireless broadband connections over several miles, to inject capacity into multi-mesh node clusters. This helps speed deployment and reduces costs by eliminating the need to run fiber to every Wi-Fi access point.

Traffic will be backhauled from select APs connected to the city's fiber network that terminates at the Metropolitan Area Exchange, West ("MAE West"), an Internet exchange point at the Market Post Tower.

Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi is designed to uniquely overcome the physical and technical challenges of bringing high-performance Internet access to indoor/outdoor metro environments with high-capacity coverage requirements. Smart meshing will be used to quickly and easily deploy APs where fiber backhaul is not available or cost-prohibitive. Mesh APs automatically connect over the air to wired APs allowing the city to quickly and easily inject capacity into the network as needed. ZoneFlex access points integrate a patented smart antenna array technology that focuses and directs Wi-Fi signals over the best signal path, automatically avoiding interference with other devices to ensure consistent performance and high data rates.

"We're extremely proud to have been selected among the wireless suppliers that competed for this business, especially since it's in our own backyard," said Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus Wireless. "We are seeing a huge resurgence around the country and the world for more reliable public and managed Wi-Fi services for business, to satisfy an exploding population of users now armed with multiple smart devices. These carrier-class Wi-Fi networks are becoming instrumental for offloading mobile data traffic from cellular networks and giving users a much more satisfying online experience."

Ruckus Wireless can be found on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ruckuswireless and on Facebook at http://facebook.com/ruckuswireless. The company's blog can be read at www.theruckusroom.net. Ruckus also has a YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/ruckuswireless.

About the City of San Jose
From its founding in 1777 as California's first city, San Jose has been a leader, driven by its spirit of innovation. Today, San Jose stands as the largest city in Northern California and the Capital of Silicon Valley—the world's leading center of innovation. The city, the 10th largest in the U.S., is committed to remaining a top-ranked place to do business, to work and to live. For more information, visit www.sanjoseca.gov.

About Ruckus Wireless, Inc.
Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Ruckus Wireless is supplier of advanced wireless systems for the explosive mobile Internetworking market. The company markets and manufactures a wide range of indoor and outdoor "Smart Wi-Fi" products for mobile operators, broadband service providers, and corporate enterprises around the world. Ranked as the top telecom company by Inc. Magazine and named a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, Ruckus invented and has patented state-of-the-art wireless technology, such as adaptive antenna arrays that focus and direct Wi-Fi transmissions over the best signal path, automatically avoiding sources of Wi-Fi interference. These unique capabilities extend signal range, increase client data rates and ensure consistent and reliable distribution of delay-sensitive multimedia content and services over standard 802.11 Wi-Fi. With over 55 patents, 12,000 customers, and 4,000 solution partners worldwide, Ruckus employs over 450 staff in 22 countries. To date, the company has shipped over 3 million Smart Wi-Fi systems around the world and has raised $72 million in funding from premier investors such as Meritech Capital Partners, Sequoia Capital, SingTel, Focus Ventures, Sutter Hill, Motorola, T-Ventures, Telus Ventures, and Firelake Capital. The company is led by Ms. Selina Lo, president and chief executive officer. For more information, visit Ruckus Wireless at http://www.ruckuswireless.com.

About SmartWave Technologies
Headquartered in Atlanta, with project locations throughout the United States, SmartWave Technologies is a leading "wireless" centric systems integrator that provides the planning, design, and integration of wireless networks, along with the unique applications these networks support. With an operating legacy of over 12 years, our history is rich with experience in delivering award winning wireless networks and applications. We work in close collaboration with our clients to deliver the strategic insight, proven experience, and practical knowledge necessary to transform their business through wireless. Whether our Clients require the expertise to deploy the network and applications throughout an Enterprise, a Campus, a City, or even a Small Country, our resources have the experience, capabilities and passion for delivery. For more information, visit our website at www.smartwave.us. Catch the Wave! 

Media Contacts
David Callisch
Ruckus Wireless
[email protected] 
+1-408-504-5487

Lenka Wright
City of San Jose
[email protected]
+1-408-535-8113

SOURCE Ruckus Wireless