Test Gear: Ruckus 7962
Keeping in mind that the hardware you’d be most likely to buy would be consumer versions of the enterprise gear we tested, we wanted to approach this as a comparison of technologies more than a review of any given product.
By now, you know a bit about the Ruckus ZoneFlex 7962 access point we evaluated, but let’s take a closer look. Unlike a consumer access point, which is typically built to look cool and enticing, the 7962 is the exact opposite. It’s designed to blend into the woodwork—or, to be more exact, to the ceiling, where it will blend into the white tiling and look a lot like a dome light so as to go unnoticed by would-be thieves and vandals.
Naturally, with 802.11n radios, Gigabit Ethernet, and other electronics running full tilt, the access point can get pretty warm. This is why Ruckus build a heatsink into the bottom.
Under the hood, you can see how radically different the Ruckus design is from conventional access points. Note the circular arrangement of directional antennas.
Once you get up into enterprise-class wireless equipment, deployments generally use a controller device to help manage traffic and coordinate multiple access points. We paired the 7962 with the mid-range Ruckus ZoneDirector 1000 controller running firmware 8.0.1.0 build 13.9
- beamforming ,
- wifi ,
- ruckus
first post?!?!?!
No, REAL first, dipshit.
I don't think it's a problem that this is really only enterprise-class hardware. The very fact that there's an tenna sensitivity that can cripple the entire system shows that for Joe Apefist this is too much trouble for its own worth.
But, the tech shows amazing potential and given some tweaking time, I'm sure it will become more robust and more economical and will rapidly see adoption at home.
Personally I can't wait!
As a crude guide if you want 10dB gain over omnidirectional (10x the power in some direction) then you need to have 10 antenae to cover all directions. It works but with an obvious price in money and size, and a more subtle one in intereference for/from other transmitters unlucky enough to be in the chosen direction.
Personally I'd prefer multiple omni basestations and just focus on minimising distance. Inverse square law is your friend.
Personally I'd prefer multiple omni basestations and just focus on minimising distance. Inverse square law is your friend.
:-)
Yeh totally why punch through 4 walls when you can punch through 2. Plus you can site access points/ repeaters in free space away from mwave reflective objects.
Also note that much more important to enterprise wireless LANs is NOT the raw AP to single client thoughput that so many of these gearhead tests do. We are constantly faced with offering stable and usable wifi for dozens to hundreds of concurrent users in crowded areas (conference centers, auditoriums....) Like any shared medium, Wifi suffers from co-channel interference and overly RF loud clients.
One BIG advantage that you will see enterprise vendors work towards is NOT how much speed to any one client you can get, but how much Reduced interference beamforming will allow to neighboring wireless APs in the same ESS. The net result is that all users see benefit of solid and stable wireless connectivity.