Commscope Ruckus WiFi 6 Access Point for SMB

Last updated on November 18th, 2020

Ruckus WiFi 6 AP R550 from Commscope, suitable for SMBs and other moderate usage sites is discussed in this article.

Commscope Ruckus

Ruckus Networks was originally founded in 2004 in the USA and was involved in manufacturing of hardware and software for wireless and wired communications. It was listed on NYSE as RKUS. Ruckus networks went through a series of acquisitions over the recent years. It changed hands to Brocade (2016), Broadcom(2017), ARRIS(2017) and is now finally with Commscope(2019).

Ruckus Wireless has a strong portfolio of WLAN products targeted at Enterprise customers and is one of the leading supplier in many markets globally. The products are known for their stability and feature sets and are preferred by many Enterprises for their mission critical deployments.

In this post we will look at the entry level WiFi 6 WLAN solution from Commscope Ruckus which is targeted at small and medium enterprises looking for performance in dense environments.

Ruckus WiFi 6 AP R550

Ruckus WiFi 6 Access Point AP R550 has been tagged by Commscope Ruckus as being “ideal for medium-density deployments such as K-12 classrooms, residence halls, hallways and office spaces”. The company is targeting these access points towards SMBs and organizations that want performance and features at relatively low costs.

Ruckus WiFi 6 AP R550 Highlights

• High Efficiency WiFi 6 Standard (802.11ax)
• WPA3 authentication
• BeamFlex+™ adaptive antenna
• ChannelFly
• BLE 5.0 & Zigbee support for IoT

Highlight Features Description

Ruckus WiFi 6 AP

WiFi 6 or 802.11ax is a “High Efficiency” standard with the motive to improve the efficiency of WiFi and making it more stable and dependable for wireless communications. Our earlier in-depth article on the top features of WiFi 6 can be referred for further understanding of 802.11ax WiFi 6 technology. Ruckus WiFi 6 Access Point R550 features 802.11ax (WiFi 6) standard and extends support to client stations using 802.11ac,802.11n and other legacy standards.

OFDMA (WiFi 6)

This Ruckus WiFi 6 AP features Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), a technology borrowed from the mobile phone industry. OFDMA vastly improves upon the existing OFDM technology used in WiFi access points. It allows multiple clients to have shared access to a single WiFi channel. This feature can relieve congestion in crowded offices as 802.11 ax stations need not be in contention to get access to the whole channel and instead share the channel.

OFDMA makes the entire WLAN efficient as it is clients with smaller loads that usually form the bulk of communications. Such clients can co-transmit along with larger loads from other clients. Though this feature can only be fully utilized with 802.11ax clients, legacy clients will also experience upside as the air will quickly clear out due to efficient communications happening in 802.11ax.

MU-MIMO

Downlink MU-MIMO (2 streams per radio, total 4 streams) helps the AP to communicate with multiple clients simultaneously. This helps the client stations to get faster access to the Access Point and thereby increasing the number of clients that can be served under an AP. This feature improves airtime efficiency and speed for all the clients.

1024 QAM (WiFi 6)

This Ruckus WiFi 6 AP can support 1024 QAM, which means data transmissions at higher speeds than currently possible with legacy technologies. But to achieve such higher speeds, radio noise free environments will be needed along with closer ranges between access points and stations. Such requirements make it practically impossible to achieve the rated speeds in dense enterprise environments needing constant WiFi signal management and mitigation of rogue non-WiFi interferences.

Ruckus WiFi 6 AP with WPA3 security

This Ruckus WiFi 6 AP comes with the latest WPA3 Enterprise encryption standard which improves the security of client communications. WPA3 is resistant to dictionary attacks when compared to WPA2-PSK, through a new technology called Simultaneous Authentication of Equals(SAE).

BeamFlex+™ Adaptive Antenna

Ruckus AP R550 features Beamflex adaptive antenna technology. This helps the AP to choose from an array of 64 antenna combinations to focus the Wifi signals towards the location of the communicating client. Normally signals are spread in all directions by standard omni-directional antennas found in many generic access points, leading to avoidable interference. Through Beamflex, Ruckus APs reduce chances of such interference, while also improving stability of client communications.

ChannelFly

ChannelFly is another proprietary technology from Ruckus where, when enabled the Access Point can dynamically choose the least congested channels for client communications. The access point actively uses real-time inputs from the operating environment to achieve this feat.

IoT Capabilities

The AP has an on board radio to support BLE 5.0 and 802.15.4 stations for IoT . This eliminates the need to deploy a separate radio infrastructure for IoT services. It can be useful for certain retail and Industrial environments looking to implement IoT applications in a cost effective way.

>Related Post< Top WiFi 6 Access Points For Enterprise WLAN – Comparison Table

Ruckus R550 Features Summary

Summary

Ruckus WiFi 6 Access Point AP R550 has standards based and proprietary features that will appeal to many small and medium enterprise that wants performance without paying high costs. WiFi 6 standard, Beamflex, IoT support, WPA3 authentication and other useful features makes this AP a solid option for organizations that want to buy the latest WiFi standard in 2020.

Note: All product/company/standards names are trademarks™ or registered® trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.The product features mentioned in this article are not exhaustive. For the full list of features and capabilities, kindly contact the manufacturer or its local representative in your region.