Ruckus Wireless has announced the introduction of its new Ruckus ZoneFlex P300 bridge system, the industry’s first long-range, Gigabit-class, outdoor Smart WiFi bridging system. By combining custom integrated directional technology with the new 802.11ac standard, the ZoneFlex P300 bridge system delivers blazingly fast broadband connectivity between locations miles away. With its internal antennas, it offers hundreds of megabits of performance at line of sight distances up to 8km, and over 20km with external antennas.
Featuring one of the industry’s most compact and lightest form factors, the ZoneFlex P300 bridge system supports RF capacity up to 867Mbps. It is an ideal solution to easily extend broadband services, backhaul small cell traffic, or offer high-speed broadband connectivity to locations where fixed lines are limited or simply cost-prohibitive. Schools, hotels, warehouses and other outdoor environments can leverage the ZoneFlex P300 bridge system to save tens of thousands of dollars in annual broadband costs.
“With some 50 schools spread across 300 square miles, our Ruckus Smart WiFi bridges have paid for themselves,” says Dan Maclise, senior systems engineer at the Lodi Unified School District (CA). “We’ve been able to save thousands of dollars by avoiding monthly broadband costs at select sites where fibre connections just aren’t feasible. The performance and reliability of these Smart WiFi bridges effectively mirror traditional terrestrial lines, but at a fraction of the cost and complexity. It’s been amazing.”
“With such a compact and sleek form factor, the P300 is a wireless work of art, representing one of the most advanced WiFi bridging solutions on the market today,” says Greg Beach, vice president of Product Management at Ruckus Wireless. “By combining purpose-built, high-gain directional antenna technology with the 802.11ac standard at both ends of the connection, we can now deliver the kind of carrier-class power, performance and reliability in a bridge system that just hasn’t been available until now.”
The ZoneFlex P300 bridge system is designed specifically for high-density user environments such as school campuses, business parks, warehousing environments, urban centres, parks and other outdoor venues where reliable, high performance broadband access is essential. Each ZoneFlex P300 bridge integrates a specially designed 5 GHz, dual-polarised directional antenna system that provides up to 14dBi of antenna gain. This new two-stream (2×2:2) 802.11ac WiFi bridging system features an internal, high-gain directional antenna system as well as external antenna connections to increase effective distance and help ensure highly reliable connectivity.
By combining the signals received across two distinct polarisations (vertical and horizontal) and across high-gain directional antenna elements, ZoneFlex P300 bridges are designed to maximise the received signal-to-noise ratio, resulting in more reliable connectivity and yielding the highest possible performance between two or more points. The Ruckus ZoneFlex P300 bridge system provides 30 degrees of coverage from one root bridge with internal antennas to handle many receiving bridges, or 360 degrees of coverage with external antennas. In addition, the ZoneFlex P300 bridge system features a dedicated sniffer radio for radar avoidance pre-scan, resulting in high availability of WiFi traffic.
At 18cm long by 15cm wide and 8.6cm high, and weighing a mere 2.5kg, each Ruckus ZoneFlex P300 root bridge can support up to 10 node links. Each link is secure through the use of AES encryption, with the ability to support multiple networks segmented by VLANs.
Automatic pairing and easy aiming between bridges provides for fast and simple installation, allowing installers to deploy these new wireless bridges effortlessly. Lightweight and designed with flexible wall or pole mounting options, the ZoneFlex P300 bridge system provides precision aiming through sophisticated LED-based aiming software. IP-67 rated and ruggedised for harsh outdoor environments, the P300 bridge system operates at temperatures from -40 up to 149 degrees Fahrenheit (from -40 up to 65 degrees Celsius).