Ruckus helps enterprises Wi-Fi cope with smart device invasion

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 30 November 2011 09:02

Business IT - Networking

Much has been made of the huge demand smartphones and tablets are making on telcos' wireless broadband networks, but as they invade the enterprise, corporate Wi-Fi networks are also struggling to cope. Ruckus Wireless reckons it has a solution to the problem.

Ruckus Wireless, a US based vendor of WiFi network infrastructure, has announced ChannelFly, billing it as a technology innovation "specifically developed to address the growing need to deliver more reliable Wi-Fi performance within noisy and crowded RF environments caused by the invasion of smart, Wi-Fi-only devices onto enterprise and service provider networks."

Wi-Fi access points operate on multiple channels and for optimum performance in a high demand environment, Ruckus says it is essential that devices uses the least congested channel and the one that otherwise offers the highest throughput. According to Carl Jefferys, Ruckus Wireless ANZ Country manager, "Essentially, ChannelFly technology allows Ruckus access points to automatically select Wi-Fi channels based on traffic and reliability."

The product uses Ruckus' BeamFlex patented adaptive antenna approach that "constantly learns and selects the best signal path for any given Wi-Fi transmission." The ChannelFly functionality has been incorporated in the latest release of software for Ruckus' ZoneFlex access points (9.3) and is available as a free upgrade to current users.

Ruckus claims that traditional approaches to automate channel selection do not provide a complete view of what is really happening on a given channel. "ChannelFly turns the traditional model on its head by using statistical analysis of real-time channel performance to discover the true capacity of any channel at any time," said Jefferys. "ChannelFly is based on a predictive model that uses actual channel activity to learn what channels will yield the most capacity to provide the highest client speeds.

"Armed with this knowledge, ChannelFly quickly avoids interference within congested and noisy environments while maintaining maximum network throughput."

According to Ruckus, "ChannelFly operates with or without client activity. During the first several hours of operation, each Ruckus AP determines the channel with the highest capacity even before users begin to associate. This enables Ruckus-APs to offer a high quality user experience without the service disruptions caused by interference or background scanning.

"With ChannelFly, Ruckus APs can automatically self-tune before any client devices are connected thereby avoiding service disruptions that can often be associated with RF channel changes. Once clients are active, to ensure seamless operation with end devices, ChannelFly uses the IEEE 802.11h protocol to automatically advertise when a change to a better Wi-Fi channel is necessary."