Global demand for Wi-Fi connectivity is skyrocketing with the accelerated adoption of mobile Wi-Fi devices and high bandwidth mobile applications such as video streaming, gaming and social networking. However, for mid-sized businesses, with limited IT staffing and budgets, providing ubiquitous and reliable wireless coverage has traditionally been difficult. This is because these organisations and their suppliers have been faced with a choice of consumer-class products with inadequate features or expensive enterprise-class solutions that are overly complex to deploy and manage. For distributors like VCOMM, this has seriously hindered the uptake of FMC solutions.
VCOMM provides FMC solutions to service providers, systems integrators and resellers, which in turn provide them to businesses of all kinds. VCOMM is already a well-established player in this industry, with many large-scale enterprise deployments carried out in partnership with Extricom. However, recognising that smaller firms also want to take advantage of these technologies, VCOMM decided to partner with Ruckus Wireless to fill this market gap, and to provide a single and secure WLAN for both voice and data traffic for organisations looking for an alternative to expensive enterprise-class solutions. VCOMM will offer the Ruckus ZoneFlex 802.11b, g and n solutions.
“With more than 170 million new Wi-Fi enabled devices expected to ship next year, the need for reliable Wi-Fi coverage wherever you are is higher than ever,” said Scott Dobson, managing director of VCOMM. “Until now there’s been a two-tier system and unfortunately the vast majority of organisations have had to make do with erratic performance that’s just not able to support applications like voice. Ruckus’ pedigree and success in the service provider and IPTV market made the company an obvious choice of partner – if Ruckus’ systems can support multiple HDTV streams, there’s no doubt they’re fit for voice and FMC services.”
In conjunction with Ruckus Wireless, VCOMM will hold a series of educational and training seminars for interested resellers, systems integrators and service providers. The first of these seminars will take place at 10.00 am on Thursday 24th April at the Donnington Country Club in Newbury.
“FMC is now on the brink of taking off, but what’s been holding it back is a lack of reliable Wi-Fi connectivity,” said James Calderbank, director of enterprise sales EMEA at Ruckus Wireless. “We’re excited to be working with an established player like VCOMM to overcome this challenge and enable medium sized businesses everywhere to take advantage of FMC and other Wi-Fi services. We’re keen to work with VCOMM to help them sign up more resellers for the system and to profit from this market gap.”
The Ruckus ZoneFlex system transforms traditionally complex, costly WLAN deployment and operation by leveraging two unique technology breakthroughs: Network BeamFlex and Minute Configuration. These Wi-Fi innovations enable, for the first time, a plug-and-play WLAN that eliminates expensive Ethernet cabling to access points (APs) and time consuming WLAN optimisation and administration such as configuring and maintaining every end user device with up-to-date encryption keys and wireless settings. With the simplicity of this solution, channel partners can install more robust WLANs in a much shorter period of time, while also significantly reducing the cost of deployment.