How smart Wi-Fi improves wireless network performance

You sat in the big conference room at the company headquarters, listened to the boring conference content, and planned to download a game on your mobile phone. The Wi-Fi signal in the conference room is very strong, but the download process has been paused, so you have to give up.

This poor Wi-Fi experience is very common. Due to the prevalence of BYOD, more and more employees are bringing their wireless devices into the office, as a result, this poor Wi-Fi experience has become increasingly popular.

This is because: Wi-Fi is a shared media, which means that only one person (or device) can use the network at the same time, and others can only wait. Therefore, no matter how good the Wi-Fi signal strength is, the more devices you use, the slower your feeling.

However, this is not the reason for poor network experience. The office space of an enterprise is a busy and changing environment. As employees move, Wi-Fi signals may be blocked by obstacles. In addition, Wi-Fi signals may be disturbed by other Wi-Fi network signals or employees' Bluetooth devices, tablets, laptops, smartphones, and other Wi-Fi devices are automatically connected to the Wi-Fi network (even if these devices do not need to actually use the Wi-Fi network ), it also affects the performance experience of the entire network.

The result of all this interference is that Wi-Fi network packet loss is serious, resulting in wireless devices have to resend data, which leads to further network congestion. Due to the insufficient wi-fi antenna performance of many mobile devices, a low data transmission rate is often used to maintain a connection with the Access Point, trying to minimize packet loss.

The larger the bandwidth, the more problems

Due to poor network performance, it is not caused by insufficient bandwidth. Therefore, increasing network bandwidth does not improve the performance and experience of Wi-Fi networks. Increasing access points makes the situation worse, because more access points cause more conflicts and confuse wireless terminal devices.

One solution is to use smart Wi-Fi Device Access Points, network hardware devices supported by special software, or network devices optimized for busy network environments. For example, Aruba Networks's software-based Adaptive Radio Management technology can automatically allocate signal channels and signal power to all access points in the network environment, and automatically balance loads in busy areas, avoid local network paralysis caused by overload of a signal channel.

Ruckus Wireless is a small but fast-growing WLAN device manufacturer. They also propose solutions based on software and sophisticated hardware devices. Ruckus's smart Wi-Fi technology allows wireless access points and wireless terminals to achieve optimal signal transmission, reducing network conflicts and congestion.

David Callisch, vice president of Ruckus marketing department, said: "You can imagine that both of us are in the big conference room of the company. If your voice is lower than that of others, it's hard for me to know what you are talking about, but if there is a pipeline between you and me, you speak to the pipeline and I gather my ears at the other end of the pipeline to hear it, you don't need a sound, and I can hear it clearly."

Through a software-controlled Antenna Array (composed of multiple independent antenna units), the Wireless Access Point of Ruckus can send signals to connected wireless devices. The antenna's targeted pairing operation can be completed in real time through the software, and different antennas can be independently adjusted by parameters.

Callisch said: "pairing different antennas produces thousands of matching results, each of which directs the signal to different directions. Our software can choose the best antenna pair at a certain point in time. When the wireless terminal moves, the software will switch between different antenna pairs at any time according to the mobile situation, ensure accurate signal direction and optimal signal quality. The software's judgment and correction cycle is calculated in milliseconds, so the user does not feel the pause or instability of the signal ."

Callisch said that the result of using their solutions is that enterprise WLAN performance will be improved by three times faster than in the past, and the coverage will be increased by two to four times. The other impact is the decrease in the number of wireless access points required by enterprises, which reduces the cost of enterprise WLAN solutions from the perspective of hardware quantity.

Ruckus generation, because the price of a single wireless access point is only half the price of similar Cisco products, and the number of access points used in the same area is also half of the number of similar solutions in the market, therefore, the cost of enterprise WLAN established according to the Ruckus solution is only 1/4 of that of other enterprise WLAN solutions. (The ZoneFlex Access Point of Ruckus can be used in a hybrid network environment to increase the coverage area of existing WLAN. Although there are many brands of wireless access points available for enterprises, however, using Ruckus can effectively reduce costs .)

Smart Wi-Fi in practice

All of the above are theories. What is the performance of smart Wi-Fi solutions in practice? Atlanta Aviation (Atlantic Airlines) is an enterprise that has applied smart Wi-Fi technology. It has implemented the technology in 65 airports across the United States. They provide free Wi-Fi access services for passengers and air traffic control personnel in the waiting area of each airport. At the same time, 50 terminals can access the Internet at the same time.

Rob Davis, deputy director of the company's Information Technology Department, said: "We used Cisco devices and solutions before using Ruckus equipment. At that time, wireless network reliability was poor, we always receive complaints from passengers about Wi-Fi." Later, Davis sought an alternative solution from six service providers, which recommended Ruckus's Wi-Fi device.

He also said the change was surprising when the company switched all Cisco devices to the access point products of Ruckus. "The price of a Ruckus device is much lower than that of our previous devices, but it brings us better network performance and better network coverage," he said. Wi-Fi is no longer a topic discussed by our technical department, and it is no longer a hot topic for complaints from passengers ."

Guy DePuy, an analyst at Dell's Oro Group, said that intelligent Wi-Fi products and solutions like ruckus are doing well and can achieve high-performance WLAN connections.

DePuy's reserved opinion on this technology product and solution lies not in the technology itself, but in how enterprises manage smart Wi-Fi networks in their own environments. For example, Ruckus provides a FlexMaster management system for its own ZoneFlex device, but many enterprises may already have their own wired LAN Management Systems. "Enterprises may worry about how to manage their WLAN. If they must have two sets of networks, wired LAN and wireless LAN, and the management systems of these two networks, they may cause more difficult management and higher management costs, at the same time, security vulnerabilities may occur."

However, it is certain that smart Wi-Fi is an alternative product for many enterprises. According to the Dell's Oracle survey, Ruckus has gained a stable market share in this market and is the largest supplier in the enterprise's WLAN market. If you have a large number of wireless devices in your office and Wi-Fi performance is poor, smart Wi-Fi is definitely worth choosing.