Ruckus Wireless WAN Reviews

The product could benefit from features like Cisco's, such as improved zoning and analytics tools. A tool combining features from both Ruckus and Cisco would be ideal.

I have been working with Ruckus Wireless WAN for about two to three years.

My experience with technical support has been good. Issues, such as license imports, were resolved within half an hour.

Cisco excels in radio technology and troubleshooting, though it is more expensive. Ruckus is more cost-effective and user-friendly for basic needs.

Cisco is easier to integrate with third-party solutions due to my extensive experience. However, integration with Ruckus is also feasible.

The solution has been reliable in our setup.

The platform's key features that impact network performance are multiple SSIDs, local switching, and mesh functionality. However, mesh is not recommended for high-traffic environments.

Its benefits include efficient zone deployment and access point distribution, simplifying network management.

I recommend it to others and rate it a nine out of ten. 

We install the technology and network for our customers and then we manage the network, like a managed service. Our preferred combination is Ruckus Wireless together with Ruckus Switches. We can combine it with other switches, and we do. It works with Extreme Switches, for example. Still, the preferred combination is Ruckus Switches and Ruckus Access Points because we have one window for support, and we can manage both the switches and the wireless system through the same management system.

With Ruckus we have been able to deploy and manager Wireless installations very efficiently.

The strongest point for Ruckus has always been the radio hardware. They have specific hardware to handle the wireless connections, so on the hardware level, the connectivity works very well. 

Over the years, they have added more and more features to the SmartZone system. At the beginning it was fairly basic, but nowadays we can pretty much do everything that we can do with Extreme or other vendors.

They did improve the reporting feature already, but it's still a separate system. We used to have to install another virtual appliance because we use the on-premise management system with the virtual machine. Now the reporting feature is integrated into the cloud analytics platform, but you still have to buy an extra license for it. It's getting much better, it's pretty good now actually, but it still has to be bought separately. 

If you choose the Cloud Management system instead of the on-prem VM, Analytics are included, but it doesn't have all the features that the virtual machine has. 

Ruckus should also improve its integrated guest management because, right now, the guest portal feature is quite weak.

I have been using this solution for eight years now.

I consider this solution to be stable. The wireless hardware is very, very good. We do have some issues every now and then. Most of the time it needs some fine-tuning, which we have to do with any wireless solution. Sometimes we need tech support and more in-depth tuning, but that's quite rare and happens more in complex scenarios.

The scalability is very good. We can easily add more access points, and if we are hitting the capacity limit of a virtual appliance, we can add another one and operate in a cluster, which can grow quite large.

About two years ago we had a few issues that we had to escalate, but that was more on the switches side. We had some issues with switches and hardware failures, and it took a while to get to the proper support level and get proper answers. In general, however, if we contact support for anything about the wireless solution, we mostly get knowledgeable answers.

I would rate the technical support as a four out of five. It's pretty good, but a little improvement can be done. 

Positive

I wouldn't say that the setup is complex. It might not be as nice optically as the nice GUI that Extreme has, but they did some good improvements with the last update. For example, we can do the provisioning routes through the GUI platform now. 

It's partially because we know what we are doing and we have templates set, but I would say that overall it is pretty easy to set up. I would give the setup process a five out of five.

The solution is very competitively priced. We've always been able to get better pricing for our customers on Ruckus compared to Aerohive from Extreme Networks. We also work with Cisco Meraki, and the pricing is similar, especially the running costs, but the support costs are a bit lower. I think it's interesting that analytics portfolio reporting is included with Extreme, but we have to pay extra for it with Ruckus.

I would say the pricing has always been good, but there is one thing I need to mention. Earlier this year, Ruckus announced that anything that had not been delivered by the middle of May, even if it was ordered last year, would have the prices raised backwards.

We had huge switch deliveries, still outstanding, where Ruckus had told us at the end of last year, "Order now so you can secure the price and we can deliver in six months." They didn't deliver in six months, but they raised the price. That was not very popular. We had to go back to customers and say, "Sorry, this is the situation." We were able to solve it all, but it wasn't very popular. I think it was a major mistake by them because when everyone else was raising prices last year, they didn't, so they gambled on the wrong side and thought they could stand out, but then realized they couldn't.

If we're talking about the pricing itself and not the politics around it, I would rate the price as a four out of five. 

We also offer Extreme to our customers.

There is a feature that Extreme calls a Private Pre-Shared Key, and Ruckus calls it a Dynamic Pre-Shared Key, which is an individual Pre-shared Key for each user. They both have this feature and it had been always a very strong point for Aerohive, now Extreme, but with recent deployments, we've seen that it's now better with Ruckus. If we need to assign different WLANs for each key, it's a nightmare with Extreme, but it's much easier with Ruckus.

We have a big company deployment right now where we have lots of locations and every location connects with the same wireless name, but everyone has their own key and they get their own VLAN network. With Ruckus, we have more flexibility, it's easier to do, and we can use external Pre-Shared Key third-party vendor services, which we can't do with Extreme. With Extreme, the GUI might be a bit nicer, but there's not a big difference anymore. The integrated Guest Management, however, is much better with Extreme. 

I would rate this solution as an eight out of ten. 

We use the solution for data application and internet access. 

Ruckus Wireless WAN is simple to use. Its coverage is better than other tools. 

Ruckus Wireless WAN needs to improve its pricing. 

I have been using the product for 10-15 years. 

I rate Ruckus Wireless WAN's stability a ten out of ten. 

I rate the tool's scalability a seven out of ten. 

The tool's deployment is easy and can be completed in half an hour. One engineer is enough to handle the deployment. 

I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten. 

I rate Ruckus Wireless WAN an eight out of ten. 

I use the product for internet connectivity.

The product is very user-friendly. The configurations are very simple, and the connections are very stable.

The interface has to be more automated.

I have been using the solution for 30 months.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the product’s scalability a nine out of ten.

I rate the ease of setup an eight out of ten.

It took us two days to deploy the solution.

I rate the pricing a six out of ten.

I am using the latest version of the solution. I would recommend the solution to others. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

We are authorized distributors for Ruckus Wireless WAN.

I use Ruckus Wireless WAN and deploy it for my customers.

They use it for a variety of business cases, including the WiFi deployment for the business setup. If there are a lot of customers, with more than 100, or 200 branches, they prefer to have their own private cloud. They may want to deploy their own private cloud or simply use the public cloud. Corporate clients would prefer to use a virtual environment if they already have one; otherwise, they will opt for an on-premises hardware solution.

They have better WiFi coverage, in my opinion. The user has consistent network connectivity with no interruptions or business interruptions. 

They can use a voice video from the same device at the same time, and they have a great experience because my customers now have a greater number of our devices and are progressing to high-speed devices. 

My customer has requested that I increase the speed and bandwidth. They have achieved very high speed, stability, and reliability with the Ruckus deployment.

There are numerous features, but what I like about Ruckus is that they have a good coverage range due to their BeamFlex technique. When it comes to technology, we have a wide range of coverage in WiFi coverage scenarios. Based on that, we determine how many access points to allow in comparison to others. The BeamFLex+ is amazing. 

The demonstration and configuration of the GUI, are very easy. I don't have to be an expert on it. In terms of deployment, the GUI is very simple and user-friendly.

There are numerous other features, but this is one of the most impressive.

The method of documentation could be improved. To be honest, I don't like the documentation available on the Ruckus website. They are inserting multiple PDFs for each category of the PDF. There should be proper software with universal documentation. It is being done by a large number of vendors. They do not upload multiple documents in this manner. They only have one universal document. When you go there, you will find everything in one place. 

The documentation they do have is very difficult to understand. There should be some scenarios, deployments, complications, or techniques to follow. They are inadequate in that regard, and the documentation needs to be greatly improved.

The majority of WiFi competitors cover all of the features. WiFi standards have changed in response to the new versions. They compliment the new standards in the new versions or optimize it if there is a bug or a software release. However, in terms of the feature sets required in WiFi, I believe Ruckus has covered all of them.

I have been working with Ruckus Wireless WAN for more than five years.

I'm using the 5.0. I use the older version as well, but the most recent one is 5.2.

It can be deployed both on-premises and in the Cloud.

I have also deployed it on a private and public cloud. I did not use the public cloud for the customer, but I did use it for some testing.

I am completely satisfied and have no reservations. I have no complaints about the performance or stability of Ruckus Wireless WAN.

Ruckus Wireless WAN is scalable. A large number of devices can be scaled. If you already have a deployment, you can add more than 60 to the existing setup. They are related to the campus requirement, which is a very detailed part.

We have many customers who are using this solution. It is for corporate users, or anyone else. It's not just for IT professionals. It is available to everyone. There are no problems. You only require WiFi connectivity to use Ruckus WAN.

We may plan to increase our usage in the future, but not right now.

The initial setup is easy. It is not complex.

The deployment time is determined by the end customer's work and requirements. 

If the customer is a small business, we can finish it in one or two days.  If a corporate deployment type is required, we will need to integrate with another vendor.  If there are any special requirements, it could be more than that. As a result, we anticipate a corporate requirements deployment taking longer than a week. 

If there are a hundred access points, the process will take longer. The number of access points may also be reduced. Essentially, the features vary depending on the features. If you see that they have basic feature requirements, we can finish it in one or two days at most.

The first thing we do is hold a site meeting. End-to-end site meeting with the end customer to understand what they want from the deployment, and what features they want to deploy. We conduct a thorough site survey. We verify the BOQ and check that everything is as it should be. We crosscheck the requirements, to determine the challenges.

Then we look at the site's construction and implementation, as well as the current state of the site. We will devise a strategy.

The resellers will do the deployments, but if the reseller does not want to do it themselves, we will do it for them.

One person is more than enough for maintenance from a configuration standpoint, while two or three people are required for complete deployment and repair of the AP switches devices.

Technicians who will help us with mounting, follow-up, and other similar tasks.

The cost of licensing varies. It is determined by the discounts offered.

It is simple to implement, it works well, the performance is good, and easy to manage. I would definitely recommend it to others who are interested in using it.

From a WiFi perspective, I would rate Ruckus Wireless WAN a nine out of ten. I didn't give it a ten, because there is always some room to improve.

The primary objective of these devices is to provide Wifi or a wireless environment.

We’ve had a wonderful experience so far.

It usually operates on mass technology, which is good. It has a controller, and you can control overall the map work or the equipment performance through that controller very efficiently. It has quite good bandwidth availability to accommodate many concurrent users.

It’s a stable solution. It’s reliable.

The solution is scalable.

I don't see anything which I can say there was a negative point for this product. In the last few years, we have never experienced any failure or any problem with this product.

The initial setup is complex.

We’ve been using the solution for the last five years.

The solution is stable and has been problem-free. It’s reliable. There are no bugs and issues. IT works smoothly and efficiently.

We have more than 200 users some days.

The scalability has been good so far.

We do plan to increase usage. We are adding some new areas, locations, and offices. We already have planned to deploy these. We’ve had excellent experiences over the past five years. We shall be extending a similar solution to the new locations.

Technical support is good. Sometimes we have to upgrade the firmware. At the time, we needed to upgrade the firmware, so we contacted the service teams and did everything. They are professional. We pay them and get good service. It’s not free. We have to pay.

We did use something in a previous building.

I have some experience with Cisco.

The implementation was complex. The setup was done in a multi-story building. Setting up the whole environment so that the different areas, different zones, and different localities we covered was a challenge. We had to work in quite a bit of detail. That was the concern at the time. You have to go into details so that you can manage it well.

The deployment was in two parts. One is the physical part, where we must deploy all equipment and the configuration part. The configuration took just one day to complete. The deployment part, over a multi-story building, took some time. It took maybe four to seven days. I don't remember exactly.

Since it was a new setup, it was a new environment; we had plenty of time to set up everything. That gave us quite enough room to cover any challenges which we faced. That said, being new, this was the first time that we were using this product. It took some time to understand some of the functions and some of the features of that product.

The deployment and maintenance is a one-person job. There isn’t much maintenance required. Sometimes if we see something overloaded or some switch is actually crowded, or if we connect with more users than the connections, we have to look at that. However, there's nothing much that we have to keep an eye on.

We had some local support available. With that help, the setup was no big challenge.

The deployment was kind of a mix of in-house versus outside assistance. Five years back, this was a new product for us. Based on the global reviews of this product, we took the decision to get some help.

We have witnessed an ROI. We saw an ROI after three or four years.

We pay a licensing fee on a yearly basis. It's for the support, what we’re paying for.

It’s moderately priced. I’d rate it 2.5 out of five in terms of affordability.

There are no additional costs involved.

We had other options in mind. We have a setup that is 15 years old. Before this, there were other equipment and hardware. This was a switch over to a new building and this actually caused us to switch over to new infrastructure.

If a potential new customer wants scalability, reliability, or efficiency, this one may be a better choice.

I’d rate the solution eight out of ten. There could be some improvements made in the future. However, I am mostly happy with the product.

We’re end-users of the product.

The solution is used to provide network access to users.

The solution can scale well.

The stability of the solution could improve in an upcoming release.

I have been using Ruckus Wireless WAN for approximately one year.

The solution is stable but could improve.

I rate the stability of Ruckus Wireless WAN a seven out of ten.

We have 30,000 users using this solution. The solution is being used extensively.

We did contact technical support.

I have not used a similar solution to Ruckus Wireless WAN.

The solution took a couple of hours to deploy.

Third-party assistance was required for the implementation of Ruckus Wireless WAN. We used two to three people for the deployment.

I have seen an ROI from using this solution.

There is an annual license needed to use this solution. The pricing model is based on how many access points are used.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Ruckus Wireless WAN a seven out of ten.

The primary use case is to provide indoor and outdoor connectivity to our network.

The best feature is its ability to act as an outdoor local access point. We can deploy it on a tower or building, supplying local network connectivity. It is not restricted to an indoor environment, as is the case with some vendors.

The connectivity, speed, and reliability are very good.

Technical support is something that needs to be improved.

Ruckus needs to develop newer models that support cloud technologies. For example, they have a physical controller for these devices but I would like to see a cloud-based controller.

I had been working with Ruckus Wireless WAN for two years.

My current company does not use this product.

Stability-wise, it is perfect.

This is a scalable product.

The technical support team needs to be improved. They should have field engineers, as opposed to only people available to support the backend.

Having the ability to arrange for a reliable on-site engineer would be helpful.

I would rate the technical support a four out of five. 

Positive

The initial setup is easy. It took us approximately 30 minutes to deploy.

I would budget between 30 and 60 minutes for installation and setup.

This product is worth the money that is spent on licensing fees.

In summary, this is a good product and I recommend the Ruckus outdoor devices. They have good support for this line of access points.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.