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

SUNNYVALE, CA – September 24, 2013 – 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, Telefónica, 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: Estádio Nacional de Brasília (formerly known as Estádio Mané Garrincha), a 71,000-seat stadium in Brasília, Brazil’s federal capital, and Arena Octávio 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.

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 Estádio Nacional de Brasília.  For the outdoor seating areas of Estádio Nacional de Brasília, 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 Octávio 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 Estádio Nacional de Brasília and Arena Octávio 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 explicitly 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 patented, high-gain Smart Antenna system that focuses Wi-Fi signals only 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 30-degree narrow beam antenna array along with patented Ruckus BeamFlex™ technology to deliver additional signal gain. The ZoneFlex 7782-N was specifically designed to address the needs of very high-density deployments such as stadiums like Estádio Nacional de Brasília, 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 reduce co-channel interference while increasing network performance.

The Ruckus ZoneFlex 7762-S is one of the industry’s first outdoor access points featuring a long-range, high-gain 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.