Ruckus Chosen to Outfit the Queen Mary with Smart Wi-Fi

Ruckus Wireless has been selected to supply Smart Wi-Fi products and technology for the Queen Mary, one of the world’s most historic ships, now permanently docked and serving as a luxury hotel and convention center in Long Beach, CA. Hotel Internet Services (HIS) and Queen Mary IT staff have selected and deployed Ruckus ZoneFlex Smart wireless LAN products, enabling wireless connectivity from any of the hotel’s guestrooms and common areas in order to support the ship’s more than three million yearly visitors.

The IT teams chose Ruckus Wireless products and technology due to its ability to extend signal range and overcome wireless challenges such as RF interference and impenetrable obstacles. Previously, metallic walls and other unfriendly RF obstacles on the Queen Mary made the deployment of Wi-Fi effectively impossible.

"Visitors are now coming on board with all kinds of wireless-enabled handheld devices and expect a Wi-Fi signal," said Edgar Stevens, IT systems analyst for the Queen Mary in a statement. "Having previously tested Wi-Fi aboard ship, we were unable to get it to work properly without having to deploy a huge number of APs. The Queen Mary is effectively a massive box built with metal walls and all sorts of nooks and crannies. This makes using any kind of wireless technology extremely challenging."

HIS installed 33 Ruckus ZoneFlex 2942 802.11g Smart Wi-Fi APs across three decks of the Queen Mary to provide complete coverage to all guest rooms, convention areas, meeting space and other public areas. Redundant ZoneDirector 1000 controllers provide administration of the entire wireless environment from a central point. The Ruckus ZoneFlex Smart Wi-Fi solution installed on the Queen Mary automatically steers Wi-Fi signals around interference to provide extended range and higher capacity coverage.