Case Studies



Southend-On-Sea Borough Council
Southend-On-Sea Borough Council first approached Ruckus Wireless in May 2013 and invited them to take part in a tender process to provide a new build project with a WLAN network. At this point, Ruckus appointed APC Solutions UK as the designated partner to plan & design the solution.
The challenge
The new building would be a new Forum building incorporating three separate businesses, Southend-On-Sea University, Southend-On-Sea College and Southend-On-Sea Borough Council. The building would also house a new library and would span across 3 floors.
Our solution
APC submitted a desktop survey as part of the initial proposal. The desktop survey provided accurate coverage heat maps designed utilizing Ruckus’ bespoke zone planner tool which showed how many Access Points would be required to provide the coverage needed for the proposed solution.
Following this initial desktop survey and subsequent proposal, APC was asked to do an onsite survey whilst the building was in the 2nd fix phase. This on site survey would provide clear parameters of Access Point requirements, any radio Spectrum interference, any future channel planning issues and cable requirements. The visit would also allow APC to conduct all WLAN related network planning.
The solution would provide a Zone Director 1125 SMART WLAN controller. The Zone Director 1125 is capable of managing up to 25 Zone Flex Access points from a single location. The Zone Flex WLAN solution is designed for simplicity of deployment and management, while still delivering a robust and expandable solution that delivers high-performance capabilities.
24 Zone Flex 7982 Access Points were selected to provide the necessary coverage. The Zone Flex 7982 Access Point is the only dual-band, three-stream 802.11n Access Point that integrates dual-polarized adaptive antenna array technology. It offers a 2-4-x increase in performance and delivers up to 9 dB of signal-to-interference-plus-noise (SINR) improvement and up to 15 dB of interference mitigation over competitive alternatives.
Installation works started on the 12th of August 2013. With installation complete, the Ruckus certified APC WLAN technicians worked alongside the Southend-On-Sea Borough Council IT architect to embed the solution into the complex Southend-On-Sea LAN.
The result
Bryan Worika MSc (Computing), ICT Officer (Networks & Incident Management) for Southend-On-Sea Borough Council comments: “The selection was based purely on available feedbacks of organisations who have used Ruckus Wireless, Ruckus’ Wireless capabilities and features in addition to a report of a ‘Competitive Evaluation of Three-stream 802.11n Access Points’ carried out by the School of Information Studies, Syracuse University.
“While the reason for such a decision wasn’t based on the overall features offered by the shortlisted solutions, it was based on our judgment of the throughput levels that will meet the needs of the Forum partners and visitors alike. It is our belief that Ruckus Wireless’ ZoneFlex 7982 is a cost effective option which offers the best overall performance of any of the other products we shortlisted. In addition, we believe that Ruckus’ performance will be sufficient to support the business requirements. The additional expertise that APC delivered throughout the investigation process brought us to the decision that the Ruckus/APC Partnership was the best fit for the proposed solution.”
APC Solutions delivered an extensive network, which would provide each of the entities with a wireless LAN that enables students and employees to access outside world connectivity. The staff had the added functionality of utilising a VOIP solution and were also able to access their dedicated network server, however with the secure functionality of the wireless LAN the general public would not be able to gain access to this part of the network.