Ruckus Wireless (RKUS) has made a name for itself promoting “Wi-Fi for everyone,” and now the newly public company is expanding to small cells with a product that enables carriers to combine a Wi-Fi access point with a femtocell or picocell.
Ruckus says carriers are just starting to take a look at the product, with the first deployment in Europe. “We’ve done some work with Telefonica in the [United Kingdom],” said David Callisch, VP of corporate marketing at Ruckus. “They’ve put our box all over Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, those kinds of places, and it’s just Wi-Fi to start. And they want to kind of see how things play out before they start to add the small cell module. And it might be ours, it might be somebody else’s. But they want that one device to be able to put as much technology and electronics in that one device as they can.”
Callisch said that while many service providers and infrastructure companies are not yet ready for major small cell deployments, they see it on the horizon and don’t want to risk not having the real estate when they the need arises. “The Ericssons, the Nokia Siemens and all the carriers, they want to future-proof their networks,” said Callisch, “because there is only one chance to get on that pole. And having to pull fiber to that pole or having the get somebody on that pole to swap it out is a big charge for these guys.”
Richard Valera follows Ruckus for Needham & Company, and said that the new device could be a good extension of the company’s business model, since Ruckus already has such strong relationships with the carriers. He says that while many companies do a good job offering enterprise Wi-Fi solutions, Ruckus has positioned itself as a leader in carrier-grade Wi-Fi.
