Ruckus Wi-Fi powers stadium for Nigeria-France clash

Nigeria will take on France on 30 June during the FIFA World Cup at Estádio Nacional de Brasília arena with seating for 69 349 spectators Рmaking it the second largest of the stadiums in Brazil and one of several that boast a Ruckus Wireless Smart Wi-Fi enabled network.

Comba Telecom Systems, a leading supplier of infrastructure and wireless enhancement solutions to mobile operators and enterprises, deployed and managed the Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi infrastructure on behalf of the consortium of four Latin America mobile network operators, including Claro, Oi, Telefónica, and TIM.

To deliver high-performance Wi-Fi throughout the stadium capacity with the reliability needed to cope with the expected numbers of visitors, including those in all outdoor seating areas and indoor concourses, Comba has deployed over 360 Ruckus ZoneFlex indoor and outdoor access points (APs), with over 200 in Estádio Nacional de Brasília. For the outdoor seating areas of Estádio Nacional de Brasília, Comba chose 96 Ruckus ZoneFlex 7782-N APs, and 45 Ruckus ZoneFlex 7762-S APs. The network will be managed by the Ruckus ZoneDirector 5000 controllers — highly scalable, high-end wireless LAN (WLAN) controllers that support up to 20,000 clients each, 1,000 APs and 2,048 WLANs — in combination with the Ruckus FlexMaster service management platform.

These Brazilian stadium Smart Wi-Fi deployments are further evidence of the huge growth of Wi-Fi within the region. According to a recent report by IDC, Latin America experienced 38.8% year-over-year growth in 2Q13, the strongest growth worldwide compared to other regions.

In high-density environments like these, it’s imperative we deploy Wi-Fi technology that we know can handle an extremely high number of concurrent client connections,” said Patrik Westfalk, managing director, Comba Telecom Caribbean and Latin America. “After careful examination of the available Wi-Fi technology on the market, we found that Ruckus provided a true carrier-class solution designed for this high-density application ‚Äî with devices capable of supporting hundreds of simultaneous users.

“The need for Wi-Fi deployments in stadiums is growing, where last year Ruckus Wireless undertook a first for South Africa with the deployment at Ellis Park – an initiative that we hope to expand to other stadiums throughout the country. Reliable, high-performance Wi-Fi access is required for content rich onsite broadcasting to mobile devices – which is what stadiums are moving towards. This allows them to make the user experience that much more attractive – especially for big events such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup – and Wi-Fi is the perfect platform to do this,” concludes Michael Fletcher, sales director for Ruckus Wireless sub-Saharan Africa.

* Follow Gadget on Twitter on @GadgetZA