Ruckus Wireless WAN Reviews

We primarily use it for enterprise environments, including home, hotspots, and hot zones.

The product performs exceptionally well. They provide stable performance. While there might be limited information available, they are among the best Wi-Fi solutions I've encountered.

Pricing is an area for improvement. The devices are relatively expensive.

I have been using it for a couple of years. 

Stability is very good and rock solid. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.

It's highly scalable as long as the licenses are in place. You can expand it easily.

We primarily set it up for customers, and we have deployments of up to 2,000 users.

We do have plans to expand the user base.

We considered Extreme, Cisco and Juniper before choosing Ruckus.

The setup is quite straightforward and very easy.

The deployment involves setting up the controller and deploying the wireless units at the specified locations. It's relatively straightforward.

We have an in-house engineer who handles the deployment. We mostly use on-premises deployment.

The ROI is quite good, despite the initial cost being somewhat expensive.

There is licensing involved. For on-premises, it's a one-time purchase, albeit relatively expensive.

You only need to pay for license management. There are no additional costs. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. I would definitely recommend using this solution.

I have not found any issues with the solution so far. Whenever I encounter an issue, I chat with support and open a ticket. I have found the communication, hardware, and time to be fine. I have not found any issue in communicating and getting a service. However, the pricing of the solution is very high. I have found Aruba to be cheaper compared to Ruckus. I believe that there should be a reasonable difference in price in the market.

I have not used the location services feature. I don’t know how to monitor it. Cisco has a working Aruba where the latter also has a server. I have not used the monitoring tools either.

I have been using Ruckus Wireless WAN for more than ten years. We are resellers of the solution.

The tool offers stable, reliable, and consistent connectivity over WiFi.

The solution is scalable.

Technical support was helpful. I had sought technical support over one report three to four months back. They were fine. I would rate the technical support between eight to nine.

The initial setup is very easy and you can customize it as per the customer’s LAN and WAN requirements. The installation is different from client to client. It depends on the physical condition to install or finish the project.

I have a couple of people who do the physical deployment while I handle the configuration and server settings.

We do a survey where we ask customers about the kind of WiFi service that they are going to use like voice service, data service, etc. After the survey, we generate a heatmap using my account in the zone planner. I forward the report to the presales team after which they forward the quotation to the customer. If the customer approves the quotation, we go ahead with the installation.

The point where we get stuck is when the customer asks for multiple quotations. When we provide multiple quotations, there is a high chance of customization.

I am not satisfied with the pricing of the solution.

I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. We are the resellers of the solution and we work with it on an infrastructure level. I have experience in the installation of the solution. I have installed ZoneDirector 1200, SmartZone 100, Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, and a couple of access panels. You can trust and rely on the consistency and reliability of Ruckus Wireless WAN on the WiFi. I had instances where customers had asked me to replace the competitor products with Ruckus.

I have been working with WiFi for more than 17 years. I am not able to convince customers because of the pricing of the solution. Otherwise, we could have sold lots of this tool to the customers. We provide maintenance to our customers. There is also no specific maintenance required for this solution since I have installed a couple of solutions for customers and they are working fine. There is no maintenance required to upgrade until the customer complains that ‘We do not upgrade anything and all the soft software is available on this.'

Ruckus has multiple radios. Therefore, it supports high speed for users and clients. Other vendors have fluctuations in speed. The main thing about Ruckus is that you can trust it and rely on its speed. I am simply satisfied with it.

We use Ruckus Wireless WAN for business purposes, particularly in health institutions such as nursing homes and hospitals. Our users are mainly nurses who use their mobile devices, including long-term residents who need private and safe wireless access.

What I like best about Ruckus Wireless WAN is easy administration. After installation, you'll benefit from how easy it is to administer the product.

I also like that the product can cover the whole area with just a few endpoints.

What needs improvement in Ruckus Wireless WAN is the initial setup. It could be easier.

Availability is also another area for improvement in the product.

Another huge disadvantage of Ruckus Wireless WAN is the cost you must continuously pay for the licenses.

I've been working with Ruckus Wireless WAN for three years now.

Ruckus Wireless WAN is very stable and has no problems with stability.

Ruckus Wireless WAN is a scalable solution.

I have no direct contact with the Ruckus Wireless WAN technical support team. A different person directly contacts the support team, but I have not heard any bad feedback. Ruckus support isn't the best in response time, but it's okay, technical support-wise.

We purchase Ruckus Wireless WAN whenever we have a high percentage of usage, where many people have access points, for example. For countries with lower densities where the wireless WAN is primarily used for business purposes, we use cheaper solutions than Ruckus Wireless WAN.

The initial setup for Ruckus Wireless WAN was challenging.

Compared with Cisco Wireless WAN, the pricing for Ruckus Wireless WAN is two out of five. Ruckus Wireless WAN is twice the price of Cisco Wireless WAN.

My company is currently using Ruckus Wireless WAN.

I'm responsible for several countries, with the leading country focused on Ruckus Wireless WAN. In contrast, a decision has yet to be made in other countries, so other countries use different equipment. For some countries, my company is still deciding which vendors to work with, in this case, WiFi access points.

The management console for the WiFi access points is on-premise, and Ruckus Wireless WAN is deployed on-premises.

As my company has ninety facilities, its users of Ruckus Wireless WAN reach approximately three thousand to four thousand.

I would rate Ruckus Wireless WAN as eight out of ten because the functionality is excellent. The stability is great. You also get high reliability from the product. I can't rate it a ten, though, because of its price and you need to pay continuously.

I recommend the product to others for specific use cases. A disadvantage is that Ruckus Wireless WAN isn't always available. You can reserve it, but you can't buy it instantly, particularly in higher volumes. For a new nursing home, my company needs to buy forty to sixty at once, but that can't be done.

My company has no partnership with Ruckus.

We use Ruckus Wireless as a wireless solution here and for switching as well. They are also great for outdoor connectivity.

It's great for the hospitality industry. We mainly deployed it here in the hospitality industry as they are very concerned about their customers in hotels. They stay there for leisure, so they don't want any complaints about their WiFi solutions. We mainly deployed them in five-star hotels and in sports facilities. 

We deploy them in our universities where there are a large number of students with multiple devices (laptops, mobile phones, smartwatches). They need a strong, robust solution for WiFi, so we use Ruckus Wireless. 

We rate them very high. We found it a very robust solution.  

I like the smart roaming feature. It is very valuable for us. Nowadays, people use video conferencing on phones and for Zoom meetings, so, while walking on campus or in a hotel, people experience no disconnection while using Ruckus Wireless. It literally helps us give a better experience to the end user.

The initial setup isn't complex. 

It's stable.

The solution can scale. 

The solution offers good security.

The pricing is fair. It's competitive. 

We found the technical support to be helpful.

In my region, I want to increase its distribution channel. We have one sole distributor here in our region. To have multiple distributors here would be very helpful to improve the supply chain. We need better access to stock.

I've been working with the solution for around seven years. 

It is a very stable product. We work on Cisco, Huawei, Aruba, and different wireless solutions, however, as a technical person, I find that Ruckus is one of the most stable products I have experienced.

It has great scalability options. They have controllers that support 3000 APs, so it is more than enough. 

The number of users can easily be ten to 20,000 in a larger-scale network. It is not an issue having a number of users. It is a very scalable solution.

We have used support and find them very helpful. We get service from nine to five, and even after five, if we need assistance, we can get help.

We also work with Cisco, Huawei, Aruba, and different wireless solutions.

We use Cisco here mainly in the market. Cisco was the leading product in switching and wireless before, or rather, Cisco and Aruba. Aruba is HP, and Aruba is a very strong product. However, when we started doing Ruckus, we grew more satisfied selling Ruckus as the more stable product. With a better product, we win the customer's trust and their businesses.

Initially, it's not so complex to implement. For a technical guy, it's normal. It's like every other solution; it's not very complex.

Depending on the setup, for a normal deployment, which would be two to five devices for a smaller-sized office, we can do it in one day.

We have five to ten team members trained on this, and multiple other products (including Sophos, FortiGate, and Cisco) and they can perform deployment and maintenance tasks.

How much staff you need for each deployment depends on the magnitude of the project. Normally, one engineer and one technician are enough for a deployment, which contains WiFi configuration in placement. However, in a case where cabling and infrastructure are needed, we need a different team. It depends on how much cabling is required. Depending on the requirements, we plan the project accordingly.

We can handle the setup in-house. We don't need any consultants to help us.

The licensing has different versions. Licenses are perpetual, you have to only buy one. However, they have support costs that are charged yearly for three years or five years. You have to buy the support for the license.

If you compare it to a similar kind of solution, the pricing is very competitive.

As a service provider, we have deployed many Ruckus solutions here in our country.

We mainly use its newer versions, which are WiFi six supported R550 and R650. These are the fastest-selling products. We normally sell R550 and R650 to our customers.

I'd recommend the solution to others. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

To be honest, we're not high-end users. We're schools, so as long as we can connect our iPads and laptops to the solution and join the network, then it works well for us. 

We use things like VLAN and all the multibeam features that are built in, but at the end of the day, the most important thing for us is to get a good signal and site-wide coverage. We probably don't use a great deal of the features that are offered.

We've just awarded a contract to a company to put the new Ruckus solution in, and that includes their cloud controller technology. We haven't had much experience with that yet. I suppose one of the things that I would've said is to move away from on-prem controllers to cloud-based stuff. Really, it's just about centralizing manageability across multiple sites, but like I said, that's me commenting on the old product that we've got. I know they've addressed that now with cloud controllers, but that would've been my main thing.

I have been using Ruckus for about seven years.

The solution is very stable. In all the time that we've used it, we've had no issues at all with it.

It is very much scalable. When we've had new areas of school added, we've been able to add additional access points and we've had no issues expanding it.

We haven't had experience with tech support because we pay a Ruckus partner to do the support for us. I believe they're an implementer because they do Ruckus installs for us as well.

The setup was very straightforward.

We awarded a contract to a local third-party company who did all the setup for us, and then they gave us some training on how to use it day-to-day.

ROI works a little bit differently in education, but we generally work off of a 
five-year replacement strategy for infrastructure, but with Ruckus, we've been able to stretch it to seven. To be honest, it would probably run for another two or three years if we wanted it to, so I'd say from that point of view, it has been a good ROI because we haven't had to replace it as often as we normally would.

We pay maybe a couple thousand pounds a year for support across our sites. Then, on average, an implementation at one of our high schools will be a one-time payment of about 25,000 to 30,000 pounds for a standard high school.

There is a change in the licensing model a little bit now, because we have to pay annually for the cloud licenses, so I think it'll be about 5,000 pounds a year moving forwards.

My advice would be to make sure that you properly survey your sites first, because with any Wi-Fi system, not just Ruckus, you've got to make sure that you take into account the fabric of the building and where you want your signal to reach, and the speed of the connection you need. I would say, make sure you do that first to give you the most stable implementation, but that's not unique to Ruckus, that's just general advice.

For a number of reasons, I would happily rate this solution as a nine out of ten. The support is good. The product, in terms of stability, reliability, and all of those things, has been very good.

In terms of the use case for Ruckus Wireless WAN, we have a WiFi First network design, so that's how we connect. We got rid of 50 percent of our ports, so WiFi First, it's mostly enterprise, and then in our malls, it's where we connect to a shopping center's WiFi while advertising and also focus advertising on products and specials inside the mall.

The best feature of Ruckus Wireless WAN apart from its seamless roaming feature where you roam beautifully on the network is its analytics tool that gives you so much insight into your deployment, so it has become more of a business intelligence type of tool as well.

I also like that Ruckus Networks, in terms of WiFi security issues on the WiFi protocols, is also the first company to give you notices of security issues, and also the first to provide patches for those issues. Ruckus Wireless WAN is very proactive and much, much faster than Cisco, Aruba, and Meraki.

In terms of room for improvement in Ruckus Wireless WAN, I cannot find a fault with it. It's pretty decent and it deploys easily. The product is also easily maintained. It has very few issues. The RMA process in Ruckus Wireless WAN also works brilliantly. There is nothing I can think of at the moment. I'm not an engineer.

Pricing could be improved in Ruckus Wireless WAN because obviously, everybody wants things to become cheaper. Another room for improvement in the product is from a delivery perspective, particularly the heavy delivery delays because of the chip shortage that a lot of manufacturers have to deal with. The chip shortage is not coming to an end, but Ruckus Networks has to make a plan because the ETA has slipped out from the average of three months on switches to fourteen months, which is very, very rough on the industry at the moment. Ruckus Wireless WAN could lose business to Chinese competitors, for example, HTC has a good wireless solution that I haven't tested yet, other than on POC, and it works great. I haven't yet experienced the HTC wireless solution in large deployments, so you never know how it's going to go, but HTC has managed to circumvent the chip shortage, so the ETA provided by HTC is much more preferred than the ETAs provided by Ruckus Networks, Cisco, and Aruba products.

What I would love, from a service delivery management perspective, is for Ruckus Wireless WAN to look at things like repeat offenders and best practices such as "your power settings on your APs are too high or too specific". APs are constantly fighting for airspace and it would be good if there was some type of analytics in the background that shows you the little nitty-gritty repeat offenders, instead of always looking at the big issue picture. It would be good for the product to focus on the small issue picture as well.

In the next release of Ruckus Wireless WAN, I would also like it to focus on the small things that optimize opportunities within a wireless network because if you sit with a network with five thousand access points, sometimes two APs are too close to one another or are on the same channel, and though auto channel settings sound very cool, if a third party comes in with a wireless device that's on channel sixty for five gigahertz, then that specific Ruckus AP might try to change the channel to another channel, but then the access point next to it needs to change, and so does the access point next to it, and it becomes a ripple effect of changing channels, just because a third party user is interfering with your channel. This sounds cool, but it creates so much overhead on your resources for your access points that it's not worth it because that person will just move along and then cause more confusion as he works with that device. If it's a static device, then an AP can just tell you that there's a third-party device that is interfering with a specific access point so that you can go to the site, locate the third-party device, and negotiate with the third-party owner to change the channel or lower the power settings.

Ruckus Wireless WAN having a more focused approach than a blanket approach is what I'd like to see in its next release.

I've been using Ruckus Wireless WAN for five years now.

Ruckus Wireless WAN is a very stable product.

Ruckus Wireless WAN is a very scalable product.

I haven't contacted the technical support for Ruckus Wireless WAN, but based on the emails I've read from the engineering department, the response time of the support team is very fast. Technical support for Ruckus Wireless WAN is very proactive, and it's a pleasure working with support. On a scale of one to five, with one being bad and five being excellent, I would rate support five out of five, particularly compared to other vendors.

My company decided to work with Ruckus Wireless WAN because of its price and scalability. Its licensing is very uncomplicated compared to Aruba and Cisco where the licensing structure is much more complicated. Ruckus Wireless WAN is easier to work with from a commercial perspective, and it is a very good technology. Ruckus Networks has a very strong R&D department that's constantly coming up with innovations. The product is a market trendsetter rather than a follower. Ruckus Networks also foresee future utilization. The radios on Ruckus Wireless WAN keep on improving and there's this amazing smart team functionality on radios that minimizes end-user connects and disconnects from the network. There's also a smooth handover from one access point to another. Ruckus Wireless WAN is good technology. My company researched technology and commercials, and on the decision matrix, this product came out at the top.

Ruckus Wireless WAN is easy to set up. It's very quick to deploy. Once you set up your wireless LAN controller and you start deploying access points, you can deploy the product out-of-the-box. Ruckus Wireless WAN has a self-updating function, and it immediately knows where to go. It's very easy to deploy.

The deployment of Ruckus Wireless WAN was done in-house. You can deploy an entire hotel in one day from installation to commissioning, etc. If your backbone is working and your routing is up, then the product is very easy to deploy. It's definitely not a long, painful process.

Licensing for Ruckus Wireless WAN when you compare it to other vendors, it's on par and not expensive. For me, all licensing is expensive by default, but you do get lifelong licenses, and what's cool about it is the license for Ruckus Wireless WAN, especially on the LAN controller, is not linked to an access point. It's just a quantity access point deployment, so you can rip out old APs, and put new ones in and they'll work on the wireless LAN because the license is not linked to a specific access point which is much easier to work with.

I evaluated Cisco, Aruba, and Meraki.

I'm not an engineer, but I do manage the Ruckus Wireless WAN deployment project and the network, and I've used it myself. My company is still using the product.

At the moment, some of the customers are already on the new version of Ruckus Wireless WAN. Some customers are upgraded and are on the old version because the nice thing about that product is that you can use it for ten years, but the upgrade paths at a point stop for an old device, so you'll see you can only upgrade it to a certain point. My company maintains that until the customer embarks on a network refresh where you rip and replace your old kit with the new kit, so my company works on various versions of Ruckus Wireless WAN. It all depends on the model number. Currently, in the region, my company has fourteen thousand Ruckus access points under management, and then for SmartZones or Virtual SmartZones or controllers, there are approximately eighteen wireless LAN Ruckus controllers under management.

In terms of how Ruckus Wireless WAN is deployed, for some customers, it's on the public cloud, while for some, it's on-premises. Some have hybrid cloud setups. It all depends on what the customer requires. Some customers want full control over everything, while others share a Virtual SmartZone with other customers, just under different zones.

Everybody in my company uses Ruckus Wireless WAN, and from a customer perspective, eighteen big customers use it. Customers are in the food deployment, hospitality, hospitals, and schools industries. Schools use the product a lot. Private schools in South Africa use Ruckus Wireless WAN a lot because these days, COVID has forced education to go online, so my company had a massive rollout on those access points.

In terms of why someone would not use Ruckus Wireless WAN, wireless LAN is an expensive exercise, so on the day that you submit your tender, it would still depend on what the customer looks for. The customer might look for a cheaper solution. It would depend on what solution the customer chooses, but a big company usually chooses between Juniper Mist, Aruba, and Ruckus Networks. It could also be because the company has invested so much in Cisco that it just doesn't make financial sense to go with another solution or because the company uses Cisco Meraki across all offices that it could be an international decision. You have those companies that have invested so much in technology and stick to that technology, even though it's not necessarily the best or the cheapest. It will just be too expensive to go to another solution.

I would give Ruckus Wireless WAN a high rating simply because of the ease of setup, deployment, and management. It's a simple solution. Commercially, you can compare the product to other enterprise networks very well. I would give Ruckus Wireless WAN a rating of eight out of ten. There's always room for improvement, so I can't give it a perfect rating.

My company is a Ruckus partner.

The radio frequency status is very good, and coverage is good. There are concurrent users for other Wi-Fi products.

The pricing could be cheaper.

I have been using Ruckus Wireless WAN for seven years.

The stability is excellent. I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

Its concurrent capacity is 12 users.

Support's latency is very low.

Deployment depends on two different categories: indoor and outdoor. It is quite easy indoors or outdoors. Configuration takes a maximum of ten minutes.

The pricing is average.

It is a very good product. It is a good and efficient wireless product. Its controller, billing, and user duration have artificial intelligence functions. Its life cycle longevity is longer.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine 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. 

We use this solution for our customers with multiple branches who do not need experienced IT personnel to manage it. They can remotely manage their access points and switches using the cloud solution. 

It is very straightforward because it is plug-and-play and automatically onboard the APs to the cloud. It is a highly recommended solution for people with a little bit of IT experience who need a simple and fast deployment.

The most valuable solution is its simplicity. The solution is simple and easy to use. 

The company is investing in adding more features day after day. The analytics and network automation Ruckus added recently are also good features.

The product needs to improve its latency and performance.

I have been using Ruckus Wireless WAN for three years. Since it is a cloud-based solution, it always offers the latest version. 

It was recently renamed to Ruckus Wireless WAN from Ruckus Cloud.

The solution is stable, and Ruckus performs frequent maintenance windows to enhance its stability day after day.

Ruckus Wireless WAN is a cloud solution. When it comes to complex solutions, it is not a good fit. The solution is not scalable for complex solutions for the customers. For this, we consider an on-prem solution rather than a cloud solution.

We have about 25 customers using Ruckus WAN.

We are a system integrator. For example, one of our food and beverage companies has 12 branches of restaurants. We installed one single AP connected to Ruckus WAN in each restaurant. We consider each cafe or restaurant a separate customer, so one customer can have 12 branches.

I am quite satisfied with the support they provide. 

The initial setup of the solution is very straightforward.

The end user can complete the deployment in 10-15 minutes. 

You don't need an integrator, service, or solution provider to use Ruckus Wireless WAN. The end user can do things by themselves. 

The product comes with a yearly subscription. 

In general, it is a packaged solution with analytics, support, and a cloud license. The pricing is acceptable for licensing the cloud for a bundle.

I recommend the solution for people who need something simple, fast, and stable. 

It is a very simple and straightforward solution. It can help them have a stable wireless network consultant without much IT knowledge.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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.