ckus ZoneFlex Access Points are a range of Access Points. The range starts with Entry Level access points where perhaps price is a consideration over performance, Mid-Range access points which are used in the majority of deployments, through to High Endaccess points suitable for large deployments or very specific deployments where combinations of long distance, signal obstructions such as thick walls and vegetation, numbers of concurrent users, high user throughput or maximum guarantee of saturation cover are required. The Ruckus ZoneFlex Access Point range includes Indoor and Outdoor (weather proof) models and more specific devices such as the Wireless Bridge.

The R500 is a Mid-Range indoor access point. 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz radios, concurrent. 802.11a/b/g/n/ac. 2x2:2. 20MHz/40MHz/80MHz Channelisation. PoE or 12V powered (Power Adapter extra cost item - see Ruckus Accessories). Supports up to 500 users. Supports up to 30 VoIP users. Supports up to 64 SSIDs/WLANs.

The R500 builds on the success of the 7372 and incorporates the emerging faster 802.11ac standard with wider 80MHz Channelisation, and is positioned to become the access point of choice into the significant majority of Ruckus Zone Director multi ZoneFlex Access Point indoor networks requiring or wishing to be ready for 802.11ac.

The full Ruckus specification for the R500 is found by selecting the ‘ZoneFlex R500 - Product Data Sheet (pdf)’ option within the Downloads tab below.

Typically, technologies or capabilities not included or limited on the Entry Level access points are introduced and or increased moving up through the Mid-Range and High End. These technologies or capabilities include:-

Single or dual band radio (2.4GHz / 5.0GHz)
Concurrent operation of both radios
Technology 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
Radio Chains. 2x2:2, 3x3:2 or 3x3:3
Number of Ethernet ports and PoE (Power over Ethernet) capability
Theoretical Maximum Throughput
20MHz/40MHz/80MHz Channelisation
Number of antenna elements / Number of antenna patterns
Antenna gain/interference mitigation
Optional external antenna to further increase signal strength
RF Power Output
Simultaneous users supported
Simultaneous VoIP (Voice over IP) users supported
Number of SSIDs/WLANs supported

The increase in the technologies or capabilities is not ‘straight line or neat steps’ moving through the range from model to model. Different deployments require different solutions.

Ruckus core features or Ruckus patented innovations are found across the range of ZoneFlex Access Points.
These include:- Standalone operation deployment, Zone Director management deployment, BeamFlex, ChannelFly, SmartMesh.

High Performance and Cost Effective

• Two-stream MIMO 2x2:2

• Concurrent dual-band (5GHz/2.4GHz) support

• 867 Mbps (5 GHz) and 300 Mbps (2.4 GHz) of user throughput

• Up to 4dB of signal-to-interference and noise (SINR) improvement and up to 10dB of interference mitigation

• Capable of supporting up to 500 clients

• Novel channel selection approach delivering up to 50 percent capacity gain over alternative background scanning approaches

Adaptive antennas and Automatic interference mitigation

• Up to 2 times extended range and coverage

• Automatic interference mitigation, optimized for high-density environments

• Mobile device ready: dual polarized adaptive antennas with 64 antenna patterns per radio for ultra-reliability

Concurrent support for HD IPTV, VoIP and data

• Support for isochronous, multicast IP video streaming

• Four queues per client station

Differentiated services with multiple SSIDs

• Support for multiple BSSIDs with unique QoS and security policies

• WPA-PSK (AES), 802.1X support

• Zero-IT and Dynamic PSK

• Captive portal and guest accounts

• RADIUS and Active Directory support