Ruckus Wireless announced today at TelcoTV that the company has joined Orca's Interactive partner program, the "Interactive Alliance." Orca is a global market leader in developing middleware and applications for IPTV. The combination of Ruckus' MediaFlex NG smart Wi-Fi system with Orca's RiGHTv middleware and service delivery platform for IPTV provides a certified, pre-tested and proven response to market demands for a new model of delivering IPTV services, and addresses the last 30 meters of the IPTV experience in the home.

Ruckus and Orca offer a comprehensive solution for wireless connectivity between set-top boxes and the IPTV service, eliminating the cost of wiring the whole house, particularly when there are several TVs in the household. The combined solution also provides enhanced quality of service, assuring the TV quality is not affected by bandwidth usage. Additionally, consumers will have the opportunity to purchase and install the system when and where they want, thereby avoiding the installation costs and delays typically associated with turning on a television service.

Already deployed by more than 50 service providers worldwide in 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 extens ive remote management capabilities, giving service providers unprecedented flexibility, security, visibility, and control over subscribers' Wi-Fi environments.

"We tested the Ruckus wireless system carefully and found it is an amazing solution to add to our partner portfolio as our first partner in the domain of home networking," said Eyal Adanya, director of business development, Orca Interactive. "Our close work with Ruckus addresses the critical last 30 meters and the customer experience, giving service providers peace of mind in the complex world of IPTV and the assurance that they are getting a proven best-of-breed solution."

"Orca is a longstanding brand in the IPTV world and their invitation to become a part of the Interactive Alliance is an endorsement of our success in meeting the stringent requirements for real-time, streaming applications such as IPTV," said Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus Wireless. "This combination of Orca and Ruckus brings together a proven solution that will eliminate many headaches of service providers by providing wireless home networking with the quality of experience and optimized performance, without any degradation when adding more clients."

Orca and Ruckus will target the combined solution to existing and new IPTV customers. The two companies are demonstrating their technologies this week at TelcoTV 2006, taking place November 6 - 8 at the Gaylord Texan Resort in Dallas. Please visit Orca in booth 428 and Ruckus in booth 1213.