Official WLANmall Blog

We are always on the lookout for an affordable, easy to use, secure indoor Wi-Fi system for the small to medium sized business. We have tested many centrally managed systems and all have their place in the market but none find themselves as well situated in the SMB space as Ruckus Wireless.

As far as we are concerned, Ruckus has one of the few real innovations in indoor wireless in many years. Some of which include:

The unique Beamflex antenna array system integrated into every ZoneFlex access point effectively increases the range and throughput of each AP by a significant factor. Ruckus does this by using a compact, software controlled antenna array that offers over 4000 unique antenna patterns. Expert system software in the form of intelligent signal path algorithms continuously learn and select the optimum antenna pattern for each communicating device in real time.

Network BeamFlex derives the maximum potential user throughput per antenna configuration relative to each known destination and maintains a database of best antenna patterns per destination. By steering Wi-Fi transmissions to high-quality signal paths, BeamFlex enables a Wi-Fi device to avoid multipath interference and to maximize and sustain its transmission speeds while minimizing transmission errors.

BeamFlex is inherently self-healing by dynamically configuring its “beam” every 10 milliseconds on a per-station and per-packet basis. BeamFlex effectively allows each ZoneFlex AP to deliver high gain directional Wi-Fi signals in 360º while minimizing noise to nearby networks, devices and other APs. BeamFlex enables remarkable improvements in signal gain and interference avoidance. A single ZoneFlex AP can realize up to 7 dBi in signal gain and 30 dB in interference mitigation.

How about Security?!
Today network security is one of the most talked about topics in the IT world. Well as most of you know the Wi-Fi security has been lacking but in the past couple of years great strides have been made with the introduction of WPA2 and 802.1X authentication. WPA2 is an encryption key that is placed on every one of your employees/clients machines that allows them access to your wireless LAN (WLAN). Well what happens when Joe decides to leave or you have to let Bobby go for poor performance? You will have to change your WPA2 key for the entire company and change it on every machine. This can take many precious hours that you limited IT people may not have. Well there is a solution.802.1X was created for this particular reason. 802.1X essentially gives each one of your employees/clients a unique key. So when Bobby leaves you can simply delete his user profile and maintain the security of your wireless network. Traditionally this required a Radius server which is extremely expensive to set up and maintain and the cost was simply not justifiable.

Dynamic PSK
Well, Ruckus created what they have coined Dynamic PSK.Dynamic Pre-Shared Key (PSK) is a patentpending technology developed to provide robust and secure wireless access while eliminating the arduous task of manual configuration of end devices and the tedious management of encryption keys.

Dynamic PSK creates a unique 63-byte encryption key for each user upon accessing the wireless LAN for the first time and then automatically configures end devices with the requisite wireless settings (i.e. SSID and unique passphrase) without any manual intervention. Here’s how it works:

Now when Joe decides to leave or you have to let Bobby go for poor performance you can simply delete their username and they no longer have access to your network! Its as simple as that. You can also integrate it with your windows active directory!