RUCKTIONARY
802.11ac and 802.11n
General Wireless Technologies
What it means:
802.11 is a family of wireless standards created by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). 802.11n is the older version of Wi-Fi, launched in 2009. It improved over previous versions of Wi-Fi with multiple radios, advanced transmit and receive techniques, and the option to use 5 GHz spectrum—all of which translate to a data rate of up to 600 Mbps.
802.11ac, introduced in 2014, is the latest generation. It adds wider channels and the ability to utilize up to eight data streams (“spatial streams”) with downlink using multi-user multiple input, multiple output (MU-MIMO) techniques for simultaneous transmission on up to four devices. These are changes over the previous standard that yield a maximum data rate of more than 3 Gbps, and even higher in the future. It also operates exclusively in the cleaner, capacity-rich 5 GHz frequency band.
Why you should care:
Older 802.11n technology is now widely deployed, and still does a good job for many applications. But if you’re deploying wireless infrastructure today, especially in a new, “green field” deployment, 802.11ac is the way to go. You might have heard some grumbling about real-world 802.11ac throughput gains not living up to expectations. And that was sometimes true for early products. But the second generation of 802.11ac—known as “Wave 2”—delivers major advantages over 802.11n, with room to grow. To get the most from 802.11ac, however, you need solutions built with solid wireless fundamentals, thoughtful radio design and very good antennas.
802.11ac wave 2
What it means:
802.11ac Wave 2 is the newest version of the newest Wi-Fi standard. It builds on first-generation 802.11ac technology by delivering faster data rates and the ability to communicate with four different clients simultaneously, instead of one at a time.
Why you should care:
Since rolling out in 2015, 802.11ac Wave 2 has become the Wi-Fi technology of choice, seeing double-digit growth in its first two years after launch. With wireless speeds as fast or faster than wired networks, many businesses now use it as the primary way to connect to the LAN.
Ruckus got in early on the 802.11ac game, offering one of the leading Wave 2 access points and the industry’s first commercially available Wave 2 outdoor access point. Today, we offer one of the largest Wave 2 portfolios on the market. By combining Wave 2 capacity with our technology breakthroughs in Smart Wi-Fi intelligence and antenna design, we’re making the dream of super-fast 802.11ac a reality in thousands of locations worldwide.
Airtime Fairness
Performance Optimization
What it means:
Airtime fairness is a feature on Ruckus APs that ensures all connected clients get the same amount of airtime, regardless of each device’s theoretical data rate.
Why you should care:
Ever been in a conference room and noticed your wireless device isn’t performing as it should? This happens in mixed environments where some devices are using older wireless technologies, or when some clients are much farther away than others. Like a teacher doling out snacks, access points share their capacity equally, giving each device its turn to download the same number of packets. If your colleague’s ancient laptop, or a tablet connected down the hall, takes a lot longer to download them, you’ll feel that delay—and so will everyone else connected to that AP. Instead, airtime fairness gives every device the same transmission time, no matter how many packets they receive. So older or more distant clients don’t slow everyone else down, and your network gains capacity.
Asset Tracking
Location and Analytics
What it means:
Asset Tracking is a way to keep track of a device’s location using Wi-Fi, radio frequency ID (RFID) tags, or a combination of both.
Why you should care:
Many organizations—especially schools, hospitals, and others with large campuses—have lots of expensive equipment that moves around all the time. Whether it’s tablets or laptops used by students and teachers, audiovisual equipment, lab or clinical equipment, organizations want to be able to know where their assets are located. Modern wireless technologies offer two ways to do this. For devices connected to the Wi-Fi network, you can use Wi-Fi location and positioning tools to see their location. For assets with an RFID tag attached, you can use similar tools that use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons to track them. If you’re using a Ruckus Smart Positioning Technology (SPoT), you can do both. Just open up the Locator feature in the SPoT Analytics Dashboard, enter in the device’s unique MAC address, and you can:
- Instantly pinpoint any device’s real-time location
- View historical heat maps of where devices have been and how long they spent there
- Configure alerts for when devices enter or leave a location to reduce theft and loss
- Support location-based advertising, navigation, and other services
- Better identify users’ locations during an emergency
Band Steering
Performance Optimization
What it means:
Band steering is a technology that encourages WLAN clients to connect over one frequency band versus another.
Why you should care:
Most modern wireless networks can use both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. But 2.4 GHz is much more congested—both with older wireless clients, and things like cordless phones and Bluetooth devices that generate interference. For devices with “dual-band” capability, connecting over 5 GHz is usually the better choice.
With band steering, the wireless system monitors all clients in the environment, keeping track of whether they’re single-band or dual-band, and which types of APs are in their proximity. When a dual-band device tries to connect over 2.4 GHz, the AP steers it towards the cleaner, higher-capacity 5 GHz frequency band instead. Users on the 2.4 GHz band win too, because they’re now sharing that spectrum with fewer devices.
BeamFlex Adaptive Antenna Technology
Performance Optimization
What it means:
Smart, compact adaptive antenna systems containing multiple elements that electrically manipulate antenna properties so as to create optimal antenna patterns for each device with which they communicate.
Why you should care:
Traditional wireless antennas are either “omnidirectional” (radiating signals in all directions) or “directional” (radiating signals in one direction). Ruckus BeamFlex Adaptive Antenna Technology takes a more adaptable approach. BeamFlex technology enables the antenna system within a Ruckus AP to continually sense and optimize for its environment.
This antenna system mitigates radio interference, noise and network performance issues, and improves application flows. The results:
- Increased performance and range
- Crystal clear video and voice communications
- Maximized power efficiency
BeamFlex+ is an enhancement to Ruckus BeamFlex adaptive antenna technology by providing adaptive support to mobile devices. BeamFlex+ enables antennas to adapt to client device orientation in addition to client device location.
Beamforming
Performance Optimization
What it means:
Beamforming is a technique APs use to focus their radio signals in the direction of the clients they’re communicating with to gain better capacity and throughput. And while “beamforming” and Ruckus’ “Beamflex” technology sound similar, they’re not the same thing!
When most technology vendors talk about beamforming, they mean “transmit beamforming,” (TxBF), which is achieved through signal processing built into the AP’s chip. In contrast, Ruckus’ Beamflex+ technology focuses radio signals using smart adaptive antennas. Beamflex+ is not part of the industry-standard chip. We add this capability—which works at the antenna-level—and we’re the only vendor that has successfully implemented it.
Why you should care:
When APs target their signals directly to clients, the signal is stronger (better throughput), and the overall airspace is cleaner (less interference from signals bouncing all over the place). So we can all agree that beamforming is a good thing. But some vendors claim TxBF is all you need. That’s not quite true.
Transmit beamforming requires feedback from the client—which means devices have to support the TxBF protocol to benefit from it, and many don’t. Transmitters using TxBF also can’t use spatial multiplexing at the same time (another technique that’s widely used to get more capacity in the same airspace).
With Ruckus’ revolutionary BeamFlex and BeamFlex+ Adaptive Antenna technology, you can provide benefits for all clients. So your RF spectrum stays much cleaner, and your network delivers better throughput and reliability. Want to use both? You can: BeamFlex and BeamFlex+ technologies add benefit on top of whatever beamforming technology may be implemented in the chip.