Ruckus Wireless is adding advanced capabilities to Smart Wi-Fi technology to improve IP-based voice calling over Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi Calling) in challenging environments. These include capacity-based client access control, Wi-Fi multimedia admission controls, directed roaming, and automatic packet flow heuristics.
- Automatic QoS Heuristics – this is the ability to prioritize Wi-Fi Calling traffic by looking at the Type of Service (ToS) bits set by the smartphone in the IP header, or by using automatic packet flow heuristics that constantly examine the size and frequency of packets in any flow, encrypted or not.
- Capacity-Based Client Access Control – If too many new devices attempt to connect to a given Wi-Fi access point (AP), already connected clients may experience service degradation. To help ensure existing clients’ quality of user experience, Ruckus ZoneFlex™ APs can now implement a capacity-based client access control algorithm to decline connection requests from new clients. This new feature allows organizations to protect the user experience during periods of heavy load.
- Directed Roaming – Leveraging the 802.11v standard, directed roaming helps to ensure the overall quality of user experience for the entire wireless LAN (WLAN) network by directing clients toward another Wi-Fi access point that can provide a better user experience. If a signal falls below user-definable signal strength (RSSI) or throughput thresholds, Ruckus ZoneFlex APs can automatically provide a list of alternative access points and request the client to move to a closer AP. This solves the problem of clients that stay connected or ‘sticky’ with a given AP, even if it no longer provides the best connection.
- Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) Admission Control – WMM admission control improves the performance of Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi networks for real time voice and video services by preventing oversubscription of bandwidth. By requiring clients to request a specific amount of bandwidth before connecting to a given Ruckus ZoneFlex AP, bandwidth management on each AP now takes into account network load and channel connections before allowing clients to connect.
“The innovations we’ve made will improve the reliability and quality of Wi-Fi Calling applications, which enables both service providers and enterprises to extract greater value from their Wi-Fi infrastructure,” said Dan Rabinovitsj, Chief Operating Officer at Ruckus Wireless. “While voice over Wi-Fi isn’t new, the ability to deliver a carrier-class voice service over Wi-Fi is something that no one has mastered, until now.”