Ruckus Wireless, an innovator in next-generation smart Wi-Fi technology, today announced that its new in-home "smart Wi-Fi" system is being used by a number of rural U.S.

broadband providers, such as Ayersville Telephone in Ohio, Monroe Telephone in Oregon, Wilkes Telecommunications in North Carolina, Panhandle Telephone Cooperative (PTCI) in Oklahoma, and CC Communications in Nevada, to support in-home distribution of digital multimedia content.

"The pioneers blazing the trail for the connected home are coming out of America's heartland," said Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus Wireless. "Many of these rural telcos have felt the pain of the last 100 feet and are looking for pain killers. We've turned out to be the industry's Vicodin."

The Ruckus MediaFlex system is giving rural telcos around the country an easier, efficient and more cost-effective way to distribute digital broadband content and services within the home using standard Wi-Fi. Typically carriers have been force to completely wire or rewire a home in order to get multimedia content from the broadband gateway to televisions and other multimedia devices located in different rooms. This often requires two installers and several hours of labor. And once wired, if there are any changes or additions, installer must be dispatched.

The Ruckus MediaFlex system reduces installation to less than one hour, eliminates cumbersome wiring and supports all media types over a single, universally-accepted technology: Wi-Fi. Adding additional TVs or connections is a simple process that doesn't require a installers or a "truck roll." And new services can be quickly and easily enabled by the provider remotely.

"Even if you've completely wired a home, anyone who has ever installed a TV will tell you that inevitably the wall where you want to put it doesn't have a jack," comments Ron Strecker, CEO of Panhandle Telephone Cooperative in Oklahoma. "Being able to reliably transport IPTV, as well as data and ultimately voice, over Wi-Fi solves these problems for everyone."

Ruckus Wireless is credited with developing the first "smart Wi-Fi" technology that easily integrates with the 802.11 Wi-Fi standard to reliably move new digital content around the home. It helps providers more quickly and easily distribute throughout the home, triple-play voice, video and data services coming in over the broadband connection. Smart Wi-Fi technology uses a sophisticated directional antenna array and advanced traffic engineering mechanisms to extend Wi-Fi range and coverage, dynamically steer traffic around interference and automatically prioritize traffic, such as ensuring video on demand or streaming IPTV gets precedence over data.

"Our biggest challenge in delivering IPTV has been wiring in the home," said John Dillard, president of Monroe Telephone. "Customers don't want us to tear apart their walls and ceilings, and then be stuck with cables and wires that make a mess of their homes. The Ruckus system completely removes this problem, and lets us complete our installations in about 30 minutes instead of several hours. This makes us, as well as our subscribers, wildly happy. We expect our broadband services to become even more popular now that they are accessible in the home over Wi-Fi."

The Ruckus MediaFlex system is also the first Wi-Fi system designed for carrier-class remote management and predictable performance to assure picture-perfect streaming of real-time, IP-based video content. Monroe Telephone recently began rolling out IPTV services in April and expects at least half of its IPTV subscribers will use the Ruckus MediaFlex system as the primary means to move digital content around the home.

"We stuck the Ruckus AP in a metal file cabinet and placed several receivers in different rooms of our Central Office just to see if this technology was for real," said David Tilley, broadband supervisor at CC Communications in Nevada. "It worked flawlessly without dropping the video. We were very surprised, and we're not often surprised."

The Ruckus smart Wi-Fi system is based on patent-pending technology that selects the best path through the air at any given time for a specific type of multimedia content, and directs Wi-Fi signals over that path to a given receiver instead of broadcasting it in all directions. If, however, that path experiences interference, the Ruckus system automatically steers the traffic over another path in real-time to ensure 15-20 Mbps of consistent bandwidth to every location in the home with virtually no interruption in Wi-Fi transmissions.

"The Ruckus system is literally an extra headcount as far as we're concerned," commented Phil Maag, general manager at Ayersville Telephone in Ohio. "We can now focus on the value-added services we want to offer our customers without having to worry about how to enable these services in the home."

"No New Wires"
"Reducing the cost burdens on providers is a major driver for next-generation multimedia whole-home networking technology. And 'no new wires' is the mantra among service providers, as they attempt to increase the number of IPTV service installations each day by decreasing the time per installation," comments Rick Thompson, Heavy Reading senior analyst, whose new report Multimedia Whole-Home Networking: Solving the IPTV Distribution Dilemma details content distribution issues in the home with the onslaught of digital multimedia content. "Technology, like that from Ruckus, help lower operational and deployment costs while letting providers more quickly capture revenue. This is a critical and important factor to the widespread adoption of IPTV."

The Ruckus smart Wi-Fi system is based on patent-pending technology that steers Wi-Fi traffic over the best path at any given time for a specific type of multimedia content. It directs Wi-Fi signals over that path to a given receiver instead of broadcasting it in all directions. If, however, that path experiences interference, the Ruckus system automatically adapts by steering traffic over another path in real-time to ensure consistent and predictable bandwidth to every location in the home. This ensures high-quality viewing of video content over what has historically been an unreliable medium.