Gallery: Ruckus smart antennas for enterprise wireless LANs

This is the Zone Director 1000. It is a wireless LAN access point controller that controls up to 6 smart antenna access points for the entry level model and up to 25 smart antenna access points for the high-end model.

This is the rear view of the Ruckus 2942 smart antenna access point. It features an ordinary FastEthernet port or an 802.3af PoE (Power over Ethernet) port. That bulge on top houses the smart antenna that automatically optimizes its configuration for the node it's communicating with. For extra flexibility, the 2942 also features an RP-SMA external antenna connector.

The higher-end Ruckus 2942 is designed to be ceiling mounted although it can be mounted against a wall.

This is the smart antenna for the Ruckus 2942 access point. It features antennas that cover not only the horizontal direction but also the horizontal but the vertical orentation. which can form a directional beam equivalent to a 9 dBi antenna. The benefit of a directional 9 dBi antenna is that it only amplifies to a single direction towards the device it's talking to and not to anyone else. Omni-directional antenna amplify a signal in all directions for transmit and receive which means it is more susceptible to noise and more likely to cause unwanted noise.

This is the MediaFlex access point uses a design very similar to the IPTV distribution devices Ruckus sold to the IPTV providers. Unlike the 2942 antenna, the MediaFlex antenna only covers a 2D plane (with some leeway for up/down coverage) so the access must be horizontally positions.

This is the side view of the MediaFlex smart wireless access point.