Ruckus Gear Brings Wi-Fi Home

A Silicon Valley networking company this week will relaunch itself with a new name and mission—to help carriers offer wireless multimedia services throughout homes and small offices.

Ruckus Wireless Inc., formerly Video54 Technologies Inc., is focused on managing voice, data and video traffic with a series of routers and adapters that employ 802.11g Wi-Fi and smart-antenna technology to extend the reach and mitigate the interference of wireless signals in homes and home offices.

“The service providers have to extend their services beyond the modem and the gateway and into the home,” said Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus, in Mountain View, Calif., and a networking industry veteran.

Along with its products, the company this week is announcing its first customer, Hong Kong-based PCCW-HKT Ltd., which plans to package Ruckus products as part of its Netvigator broadband service.

Ruckus has yet to sign any American carrier customers, but company officials expect that to change—especially as carriers warm up to the idea of offering IP television services in addition to broadband voice and data.

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Ruckus new products include the MF2900 router and the MF2501 Ethernet adapter, which connects to a set-top box or video receiver.

The products employ Ruckus BeamFlex technology, using multiple antennas to steer transmissions around interfering signals.

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Ruckus offerings also include SmartCast, traffic management software that allows for priority queuing, thereby improving the quality of video streams, officials said.

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