Ruckus Wireless, an innovator of smart Wi-Fi technology and systems, today introduced MediaFlex NG, the industry's first and only carrier-class managed wireless services platform for the home.

Ruckus also announced that it has closed a new round of funding, led by Motorola Ventures and T-Online Ventures, and has been selected by the national telecommunications providers in Belgium and the Czech Republic to supply its MediaFlex system as the "cable-less" solution to reliably extend and distribute IPTV services inside the home (see related releases).

Deployed by over fifty (50) service providers worldwide in their production IPTV rollouts or home trials, the Ruckus MediaFlex wireless multimedia system is the only proven solution for in-home distribution of IPTV over standard Wi-Fi. Building on its lead in video-grade performance and whole-home coverage, the Ruckus MediaFlex NG is the first in-home wireless platform to support multiple virtual APs and extensive remote management capabilities, giving service providers unprecedented flexibility, security, visibility, and control over subscribers' Wi-Fi environments.

Already the de-facto technology of choice for PC networking, Wi-Fi is also becoming the preferred technology for in-home distribution of new multimedia content and services, such as IPTV, MP3 streaming and mobile voice over IP.

"The next generation Ruckus MediaFlex system now gives us a way to extend and manage triple play services into the home with the least amount of disruption to our subscribers," said David Tilley, broadband supervisor for Churchill County Communications in Fallon, Nevada. Churchill is the only county-owned and operated telephone company in the United States. "The Ruckus MediaFlex NG is the only system we've found that was built from the ground up to help providers reliably enable and improve service quality into the home over standard Wi-Fi. That's a huge win for us and our customers."

Two major issues have prevented service providers from deploying Wi-Fi as a utility network in consumers' homes: 1) unstable performance affecting the quality of delay-sensitive applications such as streaming video, and 2) the inability to remotely identify and diagnose Wi-Fi related problems as consumers experience them.

"As we look to expand our offering in the marketplace, it will be critical to continue to evaluate products that help us deliver the best quality service inside the home," said Phil Davis, director of IPTV for Cavalier Telephone, one of the first broadband operators to evaluate the new Ruckus MediaFlex NG platform. "Being able to remotely see and diagnose problems in real time has become an essential element to the success of new digital broadband services."

The Ruckus MediaFlex NG system is the only in-home wireless solution on the market to deliver all the value of extended range, increased capacity and predictable performance using standard 802.11 Wi-Fi, combined with a full suite of carrier management capabilities. Unlike consumer-grade Wi-Fi devices, the Ruckus MediaFlex was developed as an industrial-strength smart Wi-Fi system that automatically adapts to the changing RF characteristics within the home using state-of-the-art, patent-pending smart antenna (BeamFlex(TM)) and quality of service (SmartCast(TM)) technologies.

With the Ruckus MediaFlex NG system, providers can now securely deploy and control services delivered over subscribers' home wireless LANs while allowing consumers to use the same network for interconnecting home Wi-Fi devices and accessing the Internet. Providers can remotely view, manage and diagnose subscriber wireless problems without having to incur the time and expense of dispatching technicians.

"Innovative broadband services, such as IPTV, are shaping the requirements of next generation home networks and are changing how providers view ownership and control of the customer premises," said Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus Wireless. "Consequently, the home networking market is undergoing a dramatic transformation with service providers incorporating this last 100 feet into their service delivery infrastructure. The MediaFlex NG is the catalyst for this change."

Single Managed Platform, Multiple Networks
With the Ruckus MediaFlex NG, providers can securely operate and manage multiple wireless virtual networks within the home. Each virtual network can be dedicated to a specific organization, service or traffic type, uniquely managed and secured by the service provider or a designated administrator.

Virtual networks can be prioritized at the discretion of the provider. IPTV traffic, for instance, can traverse a discrete Wi-Fi network and be given higher priority over another wireless network on the same MediaFlex NG system. Separate statistics for each virtual network (per SSID) can be collected and discrete security policies applied. On the same device, operators can provide users their own wireless network using a separate, user managed SSID.

First-of-Its-Kind Remote Wireless LAN Management Technology
Complementing its patent-pending BeamFlex smart antenna and SmartCast traffic engineering technologies, Ruckus Wireless introduced a third essential technology called InTune.

A remote wireless service management technology, InTune provides operators access -- via SNMP, HTTP, SSL, SSH and Telnet -- to the performance and RF information necessary to manage triple play services, as well as the ability to perform inventory audits on wireless devices within a subscriber's home network.

Operators can remotely access the MediaFlex NG system to obtain detailed real-time and historical statistics as well as information on the attached wireless devices such as the amount of traffic transmitted and received by each device, packet error rates, signal-to-noise ratios, throughput, etc. Providers can even run diagnostic tests on MediaFlex NG systems located within the home.

Automatic firmware upgrade ensures that in-home MediaFlex devices are kept up-to-date with the latest capabilities without manual intervention. Service providers can also remotely upgrade a subscriber MediaFlex NG system, reconfigure it and trigger a restart or let the system automatically restart when it becomes idle.

"The big unsolved problem now centers on the last 100 feet," said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for Infonetics. "While early home networking was driven by end users, triple play services and the management of those services down to the end points require operators to have new controls within the home. This has profound ramifications for consumers, carriers and content providers alike."

Flexible Deployment Options
Flexible deployment options allow the MediaFlex NG system to be seamlessly integrated within existing service provider topologies.

Based on provider requirements, discrete services and traffic can be segregated by physical ports or aggregated over a single connection. In addition, separate wireless domains and security modes segment service provider traffic, such as IPTV, from home user traffic with the requisite priorities automatically enforced. This lets carriers give consumers the freedom to operate their own Wi-Fi network while ensuring that revenue- generating services receive the highest priority.

To easily support most deployment models, the Ruckus MediaFlex NG system also features a full range of protocols and capabilities such as SSL, SSH, Telnet, PPPoE, NAT, 802.1X, DHCP client and server, routing and Layer-2 bridged mode.

Product Details, Pricing and Availability
The Ruckus MediaFlex NG system includes a five-port multimedia 802.11b/g router (VF2825) and a one-port multimedia adapter (VF2111).

The MediaFlex NG router is specifically designed to deliver continuous high-performance, video-grade wireless networking. The system is capable of simultaneously supporting three to four standard definition MPEG-2 video streams or one to two high definition video streams, providing 15-25 Mbps of sustained video throughput to any corner of a 3,000 square foot home.

The MediaFlex NG adapter is designed to provide reliable, high performance wireless connectivity to IP-enabled multimedia devices such as set top boxes or gaming consoles that do not offer native Wi-Fi support. The MediaFlex NG adapter is one of the most sensitive Wi-Fi receivers on the market with the ability to reliably receive Wi-Fi signals down to -100 dBm.

Available immediately, the list prices for the Ruckus MediaFlex VF2825 router and VF2111 adapter are US $159.00 and US $99.00 respectively. Visit Ruckus Wireless for more details.