Adaptable and affordable wireless LAN solutions from Ruckus Wireless allow reseller to effectively target the education sector

Ruckus Wireless today announced that gold partner, Net-Ctrl, has been its top performing reseller in the UK this year, boasting particular success in the education sector as the demand for simple, reliable and affordable Wi-Fi networks increases. Net-Ctrl has seen wide demand for the Ruckus ZoneFlex wireless LAN (WLAN) solutions, which are capable of delivering up to three-to-four times the performance and reliability over conventional Wi-Fi technology and can be scaled to support the rapidly growing number of mobile devices being used for teaching within schools.

“We’ve been working with Ruckus Wireless for just over a year now, and have deployed the ZoneFlex kit across a wide range of environments,” said Mark Power, wireless security specialist at Net-Ctrl. “In the last eight months, we’ve closed more than 70 deals in the education sector alone – that’s almost half a million’s worth of revenue from products and services.”

With In-Stat predicting that there will be more than one billion Wi-Fi enabled devices by 2012, plus the fact that in the education sector laptops and mobile devices are increasingly seen as integral learning tools, the need for reliable wireless networking is obvious.
Furthermore, with electronic registering soon to be compulsory for some schools, there are significant opportunities for partners that can offer the right technology at the right price.
For Net-Ctrl, the ability to deliver robust solutions while minimising time spent on both initial deployment and support means the company has seen revenues grow despite the economic climate.

Net-Ctrl has recently completed deployments at Cleeve Primary, Bordesley Green Junior and Infants School and Kingsbury School and Sports College. Using Ruckus solutions, Net-Ctrl replaced Cleeve Primary’s existing consumer-grade router with a robust wireless network capable of supporting the growing number of laptops within the school. At Bordesley Green, staff members tested the ZoneFlex kit before committing to buy, and were so impressed with the reliability and value of the solution that they recommended it to nearby Kingsbury School and Sports College. In each case, the flexibility of the Ruckus products allowed Net-Ctrl to quickly tailor a solution that met the exact needs of its customers at a price they could afford.

“ICT now plays a prominent role across all areas of the National Curriculum and despite limited budgets, Wi-Fi is now an integral part of the teaching environment,” continued Power. “Since the Ruckus products all come with a lifetime guarantee, it’s easy for us to show our customers that we all have the utmost confidence in the technology. What’s more,despite the global recession, we’ve experienced no slow down at all in Ruckus sales. In fact, the opposite is true - especially in education.”

Net-Ctrl is also making good headway in the healthcare, hospitality and construction sectors with Ruckus products. For example, at Hutchison/MRC Research Centre, a state-of-the-art cancer research facility in Cambridge, the ZoneFlex solution is providing reliable coverage to every area of the building, despite the challenges of thick structural walls and difficult-toreach cold rooms.

“Net-Ctrl’s thorough understanding of the WLAN market has helped the company to leap from strength to strength, particularly within the education sector,” said Jim Calderbank, director of enterprise sales EMEA at Ruckus. “With the ZoneFlex solution, we use fewer APs than competing products to reliably cover the same area, so we can drive prices down for customers without compromising on coverage. This has enabled resellers like Net-Ctrl to successfully target new markets, and because the ZoneFlex is so easy to install and manage, our partners also have extra time to work on other projects and secure more deals.”

The Ruckus ZoneFlex Smart WLAN combines technical advances in RF signal routing and adaptive antenna array with centralised WLAN management. The solution can manage anything between one and 250 access points, and is ideal for organisations with limited IT staffing and budgets that still require a secure WLAN that can deliver voice and data, wideranging coverage and reliable performance. The simplicity of ZoneFlex gives partners such as Net-Ctrl the ability to deploy robust WLANs in a shorter period of time while significantly reducing the cost of delivering high-quality services to their customers.