Ruckus Wireless Receives Voice Certification From Polycom, Lands InterContinental and Four Seasons Resort Whistler VoFi

SUNNYVALE, CA, Mar 30 (MARKET WIRE) --
Ruckus Wireless(TM) (Ruckus) today announced that its ZoneFlex(TM) 7962
access point (AP) -- the newest dual-band access point supporting
beamforming -- has received VIEW (Voice Interoperability for Enterprise
Wireless) certification from Polycom for use with its SpectraLink 8020
and 8030 Wireless Telephones.

In addition, Ruckus said today that it was selected by the
InterContinental Mark Hopkins and Four Seasons Resort Whistler to provide
Smart Wi-Fi gear to support voice over Wi-Fi applications.

The Ruckus ZoneFlex Enterprise Smart wireless LAN (WLAN) system is based
on patented beamforming technology that delivers superior and consistent
performance for Wi-Fi client devices with wire-like reliability. The
SpectraLink Wireless Telephones are designed for high-use enterprise
environments in which employee mobility, responsiveness, and productivity
are essential. Polycom's VIEW Certification provides customers with proven
Wi-Fi telephony solutions using enterprise-class WLAN infrastructure
products -- like ZoneFlex 7962 -- and Polycom's SpectraLink Wireless
Telephones.

"Voice is brutally intolerant of poor network performance so specialized
AP algorithms are needed to avoid call-dropping, jitter, packet loss, and
irksome power-save synchronization problems," said Bill Kish, co-founder
and CTO at Ruckus Wireless. "Intelligent antenna designs coupled with
smarter algorithms that determine best path signal selection help to solve
these problems."

Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Perfects Voice over Wi-Fi Communications

Built in 1926, San Francisco's historic and luxurious InterContinental
Mark Hopkins hotel needed to use Wi-Fi to support new push-to-talk VOIP
communicators for hotel employees. Because of the building's old
construction, which used metal lathe walls coated in concrete plaster,
reliable Wi-Fi for anything other than providing high-speed connectivity
to guests was problematic. And the more APs the hotel's IT staff threw at
the problem, the more interference was created.

"We had relied on Cisco access points with amplifiers and high-gain DB
cones to give our guests Wi-Fi connectivity throughout most of the hotel,"
said Robert Cantrell, IT director for the Mark Hopkins. "When the voice
system started to perform poorly, some groups of employees refused to use
it because they believed it was unreliable," said Cantrell. "Our initial
assessment was simply to add more APs with high-gain amps and antennas.
But that didn't fix the problem. In fact, we ultimately found that
interference, not coverage, was the main culprit -- and the additional APs
just added more noise into the environment."

After thorough site analysis, Cantrell identified the three main problems
with his current network: weak signal levels in various parts of the
hotel, too much "noise" which degraded voice call quality, and roaming
problems -- meaning, when a mobile VoIP user crossed from one coverage
cell into the next, rather than a seamless transition between APs, the
call would often drop while the device reassociated itself with the new
AP.

Cantrell realized he needed a system that would not only provide a strong
signal but that could deal with surrounding interference. Also, because
the voice badge communicators transmit at much lower power levels than
other handsets, Cantrell needed a wireless system with high receive
sensitivity that wouldn't add more interference to the airwaves. To solve
this problem, Cantrell installed a Ruckus ZoneFlex Smart WLAN system.
Cantrell noted unlike other products its unique beamsteering technology
deals intelligently with interference by continually monitoring the
signal path and choosing the best one at any given time.

Unlike any other WLAN system available today, the Ruckus ZoneFlex Smart
WLAN integrates BeamFlex, a patented high-gain directional antenna array
in every AP. BeamFlex forms and directs Wi-Fi signals only where needed.
Meanwhile, automatic interference mitigation (AIM) technology rejects
unwanted RF noise by ignoring energy from other devices that would
otherwise degrade performance. This same antenna technology is used to
focus reception of faint signals from devices such as VoIP badges that
would not be heard by conventional APs.

According to Cantrell, since the Ruckus Smart WLAN system was installed,
the erratic behavior of the voice system has been stabilized and groups in
the hotel that previously refused to use the system have now willingly
adopted it. "A unified communications system for all employees in the
hotel is essential to deliver the kind of quality services expected from a
hotel such as the Mark Hopkins. Once we installed the Ruckus system, we
experienced a demonstrable improvement in staff connectivity giving them
the power to deliver unprecedented service to our guests."

Embedded Video Available:
http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=486003

Media Contacts
David Callisch
Ruckus Wireless
Email Contact
+1-408-504-5487 mobile

Copyright 2009, Market Wire, All rights reserved.

-0-