Ruckus Wireless, Inc. has announced that a number of Ruckus ZoneFlex access points (APs), including the new Ruckus ZoneFlex R500 (2×2:2) and ZoneFlex R600 (3×3:3) high-performance 802.11ac mid-range indoor APs, the new ZoneFlex T300 Series dual-band 802.11ac outdoor APs, plus the Ruckus ZoneDirector 3000, ZoneDirector 5000, and new ZoneDirector 1200 Smart Wireless LAN (WLAN) controllers, and the Ruckus SmartCell Gateway (SCG) 200, have all been qualified under the Microsoft Lync Server Wi-Fi qualification program.
Microsoft Lync certification is designed to ensure an exceptional user experience for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs), and large enterprises that utilize Microsoft Lync and Office 365 by enabling a seamless, fully integrated unified communications (UC) solution. The Microsoft Lync certification of Ruckus Wi-Fi products reflects unique technical advances in handling delay-sensitive voice and video traffic over Wi-Fi.
Unique Innovations in Wi-Fi Traffic Handling Help Ensure Crystal Clear Wi-Fi Calling
Unlike competitive alternatives, Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi access points integrate patented SmartCast technology. SmartCast combines sophisticated scheduling and queuing mechanisms with advanced heuristic algorithms that automatically identify and characterize traffic based on its unique behavior to
help ensure peak performance.
With a Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi system, all traffic is queued/de-queued by specialized schedulers, optimized for the corresponding traffic type, the delay/jitter tolerance and bandwidth requirements of the traffic, and the changing characteristics of each station on the wireless LAN. This automatic Type Of Service (TOS) tagging also eliminates complex Quality of Service (QoS) configurations, with automatic management of lower-speed 802.11 devices to assure bandwidth availability for prioritized video and voice over Wi-Fi applications. When combined with Ruckus BeamFlex™ adaptive antenna array technology that directs each packet over the fastest signal path that yields the highest data rates, multimedia Wi-Fi performance is effectively perfected.
Simply Better Wi-Fi Calling
This is particularly important with emerging applications such as Wi-Fi calling that now provide the ability to place a cellular voice call over a Wi-Fi network, terminating the call with the carrier network.
Many Wi-Fi calling solutions utilize the 3GPP IR-92 standard for VoLTE (voice over LTE). This standard has an option that allows the entire LTE stack to be tunneled over Wi-Fi using Internet Protocol Security (IPsec). As a result, the payload is encrypted thereby preventing conventional Wi-Fi access points from differentiating traffic types.
Conversely, Ruckus SmartCast is able to prioritize Wi-Fi calling traffic by acting on the TOS bits set by the smartphone in the IP header, using advanced heuristic algorithms that allow the system to detect voice traffic by looking at the size and frequency of packets in a flow, regardless of whether the flow is encrypted.
“Ruckus continues to meet growing customer requirements for higher capacity, managed Wi-Fi enabled UC solutions that support the explosion of smart devices connecting to enterprise networks,” said Amer Hassan, Principal GPM, Microsoft Lync Partner Engineering. “By qualifying Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi with Microsoft Lync, Ruckus is delivering the type of infrastructure needed to help meet growing customer demands for increased unified communications capacity and mobility.”
“Microsoft Lync delivers a platform for Unified Communications which is widely accepted in the enterprise environment,” said Greg Beach, vice president of product management, Ruckus Wireless. “Utilizing the many capabilities Lync provides with a Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi network infrastructure, we believe enterprises can deliver a very high-quality user experience.”
