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Ruckus teams with San Francisco to deliver free public Wi-Fi

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Krystal
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SAN FRANCISCO and SUNNYVALE, USA: Ruckus Wireless, Inc. announced a partnership with the City and County of San Francisco, CA to deliver free, high-speed outdoor public Wi-Fi service up and down the City's world-famous Market Street corridor, starting from the intersection of Market and Castro Streets down to the pedestrian corridor at the Embarcadero.

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San Francisco's new free public Wi-Fi service, named '_San_Francisco_Free_WiFi', which is the SSID (network name) for the new service, is a key part of the City's multi-phase initiative to offer free public Wi-Fi in and around San Francisco.

This public-private partnership between San Francisco's Department of Technology (DT) and Ruckus teamed technical staff from the City and Ruckus to design, build and deploy a world-class Wi-Fi network capable of delivering a high-speed online experience to users while acting as a reliable utility for existing and future City services.

Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus Wireless, said: "Ruckus and San Francisco share a similar vision of the vital importance in providing pervasive, reliable wireless connectivity to people who rely on getting online everyday to work, play, and live.

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"With the explosive growth of the mobile Internet and mobile Internet applications, high-speed Wi-Fi access is now viewed as a non-negotiable utility. We are proud to have been chosen as the foundation and technology provider for delivering such a valuable service to the City of San Francisco."

Mounted on traffic poles with gigabit fiber backbone connections, Ruckus ZoneFlex 7782-S outdoor access points (APs), based on patented wireless technology that extends signals and adapts to changing environmental conditions, are now powering San Francisco's new Wi-Fi public access service, providing dual-band (2.4 and 5 GHz) Wi-Fi service to users along Market Street.

In locations where fiber backhaul to the Ruckus access points is prohibitive, Ruckus smart mesh networking technology is being used to provide highly resilient wireless connections between access points.

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Redundant Ruckus SmartCell Gateway (SCG) 200 wireless LAN (WLAN) controllers are deployed within the City's data center to aggregate traffic and provide centralized management of the Wi-Fi infrastructure.

Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi was selected by San Francisco because it overcomes the physical and technical challenges of bringing high-speed wireless connectivity to outdoor environments like the Market Street corridor, with its high-capacity coverage requirements, where many users are trying to access the network simultaneously.

Through the use of patented Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi technology, Ruckus access points are able to extend Wi-Fi signals over longer distances while adapting signals to constant changes in environmental conditions. This provides users more stable and higher speed connections than conventional Wi-Fi technology.

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