Brazil universities to access Ruckus Wi-Fi

NEW DELHI: Ruckus Wireless has said that its Smart Wi-Fi products and technology have been selected and deployed across nearly one-third of all public (aka federal) universities in Brazil.

Thousands of Ruckus ZoneFlex access points (APs) are being used for Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi networks at these higher education institutions across Brazil to deliver high performance, reliable wireless connectivity to tens of thousands of students, faculty and staff.

“We now have flexibility, control, signal stability, and high density per AP with Ruckus. We plan to expand our Ruckus wireless network to provide complete coverage in all of our campus environments.”

“The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend sweeping through education markets around the world is changing the face of teaching and learning, as more students use their own devices both at home and in school. As is the case everywhere, reliable, consistent Wi-Fi availability is becoming increasingly important for students and teachers in Brazil. Users need faster and more stable access to Internet-delivered coursework, e-books, video and other digital curriculum tools that enrich their educational experience,” a statement said.

The TIC Educação survey found that 96 percent of teachers in Brazilian public schools use Internet resources to prepare their classes. The survey also identified that 71 percent of public schools in Brazil have Wi-Fi, but the Internet connection is very slow and unreliable in 52 percent of these schools.

Educational institutions thus face the rapidly increasing challenge to deliver the Wi-Fi density, connectivity and coverage required to adequately accommodate a growing population of sophisticated users, who are now armed with multiple WiFi-enabled mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

For flexible deployment and centralized management, Ruckus ZoneDirector Smart wireless LAN (WLAN) controllers give universities in Brazil a variety of deployment options that allow simple, centralized and unified management for indoor and outdoor wired and meshed access points, a release said.

Ruckus ZoneDirector controllers uniquely provide them with at-a-glance views of the number of different types of devices being used on their Wi-Fi networks, as well as the ability to easily and effectively define user- or device-specific access policies to optimize network performance and keep user traffic secure.

“Now with the Ruckus products and technology, we have great management capacity, enabling us to know the user demand by access point, divide the APs by groups, send SSIDs to different groups, authenticate users using the 802.1X protocol, and we can solve problems faster because, for example, when an access point is disconnected, the controller tells us immediately.

We plan to expand our WiFi network with Ruckus Wireless equipment as we currently work with 802.11n equipment, and we would like in the future to adopt the 802.11ac standard,” said Fabio Rogerio da Silva, Chief of the Logic Network Department at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar).