SYDNEY, 20th August 2013 – Ruckus Wireless, Inc. (NYSE: RKUS) announced today that more than 180,000 travellers using Australia’s busiest transport hub, Sydney’s Central Station, now have access to free Wi-Fi following a progressive decision by the NSW Government’s Transport Department to install a Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi network to deliver a better Internet experience for commuters.
entral Station is located at the southern end of the Sydney CBD and is Australia’s largest railway station. It is the hub of the Sydney Trains network. As one of Sydney's most recognisable landmarks, Central is also a popular meeting point for travellers and is also a key interchange point between buses, coaches and trams.
To enable the new Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi network at Central Station, the NSW Government owned RailCorp appointed McLaren Technologies (Fluide Internet Portal) and Virtual Graffiti Australia to deploy the system.
McLaren Technologies CEO Matthew White said, “McLaren's hospitality solutions currently provide Internet access to hundreds of hotels across Asia Pacific, so this has been an exciting opportunity for McLaren to now deliver a public infrastructure project.”
Thanks to RailCorp's focus on enhancing the customer travel experience, today thousands of commuters have access to free, Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi. After accepting the terms and conditions, users receive 400MB per day to use as they wish.
The NSW Government is the latest in a growing list of high traffic public areas around the globe that are turning to smarter, more reliable Wi-Fi from Ruckus for wireless broadband access, offloading data traffic from increasingly overburdened 3G cellular networks. In Australia, Flinders Street Station, Moonee Valley Racing Club and over 60 local councils are some of the public venues that have deployed a Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi solution for their patrons.
Utilising Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi technology, the McLaren solution includes a Nomadix gateway and McLaren's Fluide web portal controlling bandwidth management, access times and all aspects of the user’s Internet experience. The technology tracks trends for usage at varying periods of the day, which will ultimately assist with ensuring adequate access at peak periods.
Virtual Graffiti’s Sales Director Jonny Wahlhaus said, “We have been delighted to work with Railcorp on this project which will potentially change the travelling experience of up to 180,000 customers each day. That is as big an impact as you can wish for from a single Wi-Fi implementation.”
Eleven Ruckus ZoneFlex™ 7782-N outdoor access points (APs) were deployed to provide the higher levels of capacity and reliability required in noisy and crowded radio frequency (RF) environments like Sydney’s Central Station. The ZoneFlex 7782-N is the industry’s first 802.11n outdoor access point featuring a 30° narrow beam antenna array along with Ruckus BeamFlex™ technology to deliver additional signal gain. The narrow beam antenna in the ZoneFlex 7782-N is able to focus RF energy into a specific area, which greatly reduces the opportunity for interference and increases network performance.
“The ZoneFlex 7782-N was designed with challenging, high density outdoor deployments, such as Central Station, in mind,” said Mr Wahlhaus.
Announcing the launch, Minister for Transport, Gladys Berejiklian, said “We are determined to provide services tailored to the specific needs of our customers and this free Wi-Fi means intercity and regional customers can keep in touch with friends, family or work. It will also give them better access to the NSW Government’s train apps, providing real-time information about train services”.
The McLaren Group, headquartered out of Singapore and Sydney, Australia is one of Asia Pacific’s leading providers of SaaS based technology solutions for hotels, resorts and visitor based environments. McLaren delivers a range of “best of breed” SaaS products, solutions and services from the world’s foremost providers of hospitality technology. McLaren Technologies' customers span the world’s leading hotel companies including the InterContinental Hotel Group, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Hilton Worldwide, Accor Hospitality, Langham Hotels, Four Seasons. Peninsula, Sands Hotels and Hyatt Hotels and Resorts. McLaren Technologies is the leader in delivering 100% customer satisfaction, application usage and system operability. Supporting customers across Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, McLaren Support features a highly skilled team of Engineers and Product Specialists. For more information about McLaren Technologies contact [email protected] or visit www.mclarenint.com