A unit of China Telecom will roll out more than 4,000 Wi-Fi nodes to blanket China's largest province with indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi coverage

Sarah Thomas, Director, Women in Comms

January 31, 2011

2 Min Read
Chongqing Telecom Creates a Wi-Fi Ruckus

Ruckus Wireless Inc. announced Monday that Chongqing Telecom, a unit of China Telecom Corp. Ltd. (NYSE: CHA), will deploy 4,100 Ruckus ZoneFlex Smart Wi-Fi indoor and outdoor access points and ZoneDirector WLAN controllers to cover seven districts in the largest province in China, with plans to blanket the entire province in 802.11n in the coming 12 to 18 months.

The Wi-Fi hotspot initiative has been in the works for the past year, according to Ruckus VP of Marketing David Callisch, because it's taken that long to deploy a project that large. The operator has set up hot zones in eight universities, 13 hotels, three hospitals and two business centers, in addition to other public venues. Callisch says that Chongqing selected Ruckus because of its beamforming technology that mitigates interference and requires fewer nodes than other Wi-Fi solutions.

Chongqing Telecom is taking a unique approach billing for the service too, offering Wi-Fi access as part of tiered bundles of wireless service on its CDMA 3G network, which is branded as Tianyi Broadband.

Why this matters
Wireless operators used to resist Wi-Fi, but now more are embracing the technology and offering it themselves, as Chongqing is doing. As mobile data usage has exploded, they've had little choice.

Ruckus's products are designed to be used by telecom service providers for robust applications such as video. This focus has helped it gain customers on the cable side, but wireless operators still represent a relatively new market for the vendor. (See Ruckus Takes a Run at Cisco & BelAir and Ruckus Offers WiFi Smarts to Cable .)

"All the carriers are changing their tune with respect to Wi-Fi in that it used to be just a way to combine strategic access, greater capacity and greater coverage to augment areas their cellular networks don’t cover, or provide better coverage in dense areas," Callisch says. "But what hasn’t happened is the integration of the technology in their core networks. You'll see that now."

For more
Ruckus Wireless, a relatively small player in the Wi-Fi space, has been racking up partners as cable and wireless operators acknowledge the importance of Wi-Fi offload. Check out the following stories for more on the company:

  • Wi-Fi Ruckus in Wallingford

  • Ruckus Bolsters Euro Team

  • New Product Recap: August 2010

  • Telstra Picks Ruckus

  • Ruckus Raised in Asia

  • Wi-Fi Alliance, WiGig Align to Make WiFi Super Fast

  • Ruckus Intros Dual-Bad 802.11n Box

  • Ruckus to Show Off at MWC



— Sarah Reedy, Senior Reporter, Light Reading Mobile

About the Author(s)

Sarah Thomas

Director, Women in Comms

Sarah Thomas's love affair with communications began in 2003 when she bought her first cellphone, a pink RAZR, which she duly "bedazzled" with the help of superglue and her dad.

She joined the editorial staff at Light Reading in 2010 and has been covering mobile technologies ever since. Sarah got her start covering telecom in 2007 at Telephony, later Connected Planet, may it rest in peace. Her non-telecom work experience includes a brief foray into public relations at Fleishman-Hillard (her cussin' upset the clients) and a hodge-podge of internships, including spells at Ingram's (Kansas City's business magazine), American Spa magazine (where she was Chief Hot-Tub Correspondent), and the tweens' quiz bible, QuizFest, in NYC.

As Editorial Operations Director, a role she took on in January 2015, Sarah is responsible for the day-to-day management of the non-news content elements on Light Reading.

Sarah received her Bachelor's in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She lives in Chicago with her 3DTV, her iPad and a drawer full of smartphone cords.

Away from the world of telecom journalism, Sarah likes to dabble in monster truck racing, becoming part of Team Bigfoot in 2009.

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