“Almost every new consumer product coming to market today has an embedded Wi-Fi capability,” said Tim Pearce, IT Manager at Hughes Electrical. “To effectively demonstrate and sell these products, customers want to actually see and understand how to use them in a live environment.”
Pearce continued, “The problem we faced was the inability to concurrently and reliably connect hundreds of multimedia devices simultaneously in our stores. Our existing wireless kit, based on conventional Wi-Fi technology, simply wasn’t able to cope with the capacity or traffic demands essential to running our business.”
“When it comes to Wi-Fi, Hughes would be considered a super user,” said Fred Astfeldt, network security specialist at Advanced Network Security (ANSecurity), a Ruckus Alpha Dog Partner and the systems integrator that designed and installed the new Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi infrastructure.
“As the consumer electronics market has evolved, it became apparent that Hughes needed to move to next generation Wi-Fi technology that could deliver the power, reliability and capacity to connect a huge number of devices without any complications. Several providers were considered, but Ruckus simply offered the most powerful, dependable and cost-effective kit on the market,” said Astfeldt.
According to Hughes officials, one of the biggest benefits of the new Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi system has been the reduction of support calls from stores. IT support staff at Hughes were receiving three to four calls a day from frustrated store employees unable to get the Wi-Fi stable enough to demo products. “Once the Ruckus kit was installed, those calls effectively vanished,” said Pearce.