Upgraded Wi-Fi network greets Democratic Party conventioneers

04.09.2012
Charlotte, N.C., is rolling out the red carpet for the Democrats who arrive this week to formally renominate President Barack Obama as their presidential candidate. And Time Warner Cable Arena is rolling out a new, high capacity 802.11n Wi-Fi network for them.

The new LAN is deliberately designed to slice up Wi-Fi coverage as narrowly as possible, keeping cells small to control the number of concurrent users and reduce their contention for the wireless medium.

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Ruckus Wireless, which won the contract for the new network over incumbent Aruba Networks and others, designed a new access point antenna, dubbed Thunderbolt, specifically for this deployment, and is already using it other stadium-like deployments. The antenna radiates in 30-degree sectors, instead of the more conventional 360-degree and 120-degree sector. The narrower radio swaths help keep media contention low and signal strength high, allowing more users to access clear channels.

The arena area has about 120 Ruckus' ZoneFlex access points, both , many of them mounted overhead in catwalks and scaffolding (see photo at right), as well as under seats, VIP suites, offices and locker rooms, and outside the arena. In the main seating bowl, the WLAN uses the outdoor ZoneFlex 7762 units.