Fierce 15 winner Ruckus Wireless jumped into the metro-WiFi arena, announcing the commercial availability of the MetroFlex, an 802.11b/g wireless access gateway designed to provide better in-home connectivity to outdoor metro-scale WiFi networks. Ruckus, which initially targeted the in-home IPTV distribution market with its proprietary MIMO antenna technology to provide 802.11g networks with QoS, says the MetroFlex is designed to work with any standard metro-scale mesh network. New software determines the fastest WiFi node to connect to based on the strongest WiFi signal. In-home connectivity is one of the biggest challenges for metro-scale WiFi networks, especially in urban areas where signals can be blocked by buildings and walls within the home. Such a capability could strengthen the business case for metro-WiFi networks.
Ruckus said its MetroFlex system is being deployed by several metro-scale WiFi providers, including Cheetah Wireless, Atria Networks in Ontario, Rightway Online in Texas, Veraloft in Half Moon Bay, CA, U.S. Internet in Minneapolis and ILS.net in Toronto. Customer premise equipment (CPE) provider and systems integrator Expressnets will resell the product.
To read more about the MetroFlex product:
- take a look at this release