After trickling out a handful of modems and WiFi access points built around the new WiFi 6 standard last year, CommScope Tuesday announced six new WiFi 6 access points carrying its Ruckus brand.

"We've been shipping Wi-Fi 6 for almost two years, but with this announcement, we are taking the technology mainstream,” Bart Giordano, senior VP of product management for CommScope’s Ruckus portfolio, told CRN. "We're addressing a broad swath of the market now."

Also read: Unto This 10G and 5G World Comes WiFi 6

Developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the new 802.11ax standard, what we call WiFi 6, is an improvement on the fifth-generation 802.11ac standard. WiFi 6 backers say the technology doesn’t just improve speed and latency, enabling users to fully realize the multi-Gigabit speeds of their future network connections. WiFi 6 is also a major advancement in how data is distributed in the home, enabling routers to handle more devices at once, more efficiently.

The new Ruckus WiFi 6 portfolio includes the following:

> R850: WiFi 6 8x8:8 indoor access point with 5.9 Gbps speeds and embedded IoT.

> R750: WiFi 6 4x4:4 indoor access point with 3.5 Gbps speeds and embedded IoT.

> R650: WiFi 6 4x4:4 indoor access point with 3 Gbps speeds and embedded IoT. This addition upgrades the popular R600 series to include WiFi 6.

>R550: WiFi 6 2x2:2 indoor access point with 1.8 Gbps speeds and embedded IoT.

>T750: WiFi 6 4x4:4 outdoor access point with 3.5 Gbps speeds and embedded IoT. CommScope says it’s the industry’s first outdoor Wi-Fi 6 Certified AP

>T750SE: a WiFi 6 4x4:4 outdoor access point with 3.5 Gbps speeds, embedded IoT, and sectorized antennas. The T750SE delivers bandwidth to seating in stadiums and other large venues.

The R650 and T750 began shipping in Q1 2020, while the R550 and R850 will begin shipping in Q2 2020. The T750SE will begin shipping in Q3 2020.

Arris-owned Ruckus Networks said it has partnered with American Tower for what it is billing as the first commercial deployment of a private LTE network built around the CBRS spectrum.

The two tech vendors have established the network at the newly renovated ISM Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona. The the LTE network will use frequency consigned to the Citizens Broadband Radio Service, in the range of 3.5 GHz to 3.7 GHz, previously utilized on a limited basis by the U.S. Navy and a few other government entities.

Related: Arris IDs CBRS as an Opportunity Right Now

ISM Raceway, which has undergone a $178 million renovation, will utilizes Ruckus Q710 and Q910 LTE access points. Systems integrator American Tower also used Ruckus T310 tiers and T610 series outdoor 802.11ac access points in the network.

"Arris excels in providing world-class connectivity solutions to large public venues, and we are proud to add ISM Raceway to that list," said Tim O'Loughlin, president of U.S. sales and global marketing and customer operations for Arris, in a statement. "With our Ruckus products on-site, NASCAR fans will have better connectivity to upload and download content like videos, photos and apps -- or engage on social media -- allowing them to be just as fast as their favorite driver out on the race track.”

Arris, which agreed to be purchased by CommScope last week for $7.4 billion, is aggressively seeking deployment of CBRS with operators serving enterprise customers such as shipyards, airports and sports venues. Arris says it can offer their low-cost, private LTE networks that are more reliable than WiFi.

“We and other companies can deliver that to you today,” said Arris CPE division chief Charles Cheevers last month at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo.

The CBRS Alliance and the Wireless Innovation Forum announced this week that Ericsson, Nokia and Sercomm have joined Arris’ Ruckus Networks unit as the first technology vendors to achieve certification for new CBRS band devices.

Last month, Ruckus said that it had been given FCC certification for its entire portfolio of “OpenG”-branded access points designed to work in the 3.5 Ghz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum.

Related: Ruckus Gets CBRS Certification for Access Points

Cable and wireless operators are exploring opportunities for the Citizens Broadband Radio Service Device band, a 150 MHz-wide portion of largely underused spectrum existing between 3.55 GHz and 3.7 GHz. CBRS will ultimately be used for private LTE networks such as airports and industrial campuses.

Having the telecom industry’s major vendors certified is a major step in the broader plan to have CBRS commercial deployments achieved by the end of the year. Earlier today, Federated Wireless said that it has asked the FCC for permission to move forward with commercial CBRS deployments as soon as October, the company announced.

“This major milestone in the commercialization of the CBRS band represents the first of what we believe will be many more certifications announced over the next few months as the industry moves towards Initial Commercial Deployment,” said Lee Pucker, CEO of the Wireless Innovation Forum, in a statement.

By the end of the year, the CBRS Alliance said it expects to have nearly a dozen labs set up around the world to conduct testing for what it has branded as its “OnGo” certification of CBRS technology.

“We see immense value in leveraging OnGo technology for private LTE and neutral host environments and are seeing growing interest across industry sectors, including public venues, smart cities, enterprises, healthcare and more,” said Chris Stark, head of North American business development at Nokia and chairman of the CBRS Alliance.

“Ruckus Networks believes this innovation band will open up compelling new use cases by enabling LTE technology to be deployed and operated in a cost effective and scalable manner,” added Mehmet Yavuz, CTO of Ruckus Networks. “As one of the first companies to achieve FCC & OnGo certification for 3.5 GHz indoor and outdoor access points, we have been seeing extraordinary results in more than 20 OnGo trials across different verticals that are ready for initial commercial deployment and range from connectivity to automation use cases.”

Ruckus Networks has announced the promotion of Bart Giordano to senior VP of worldwide sales.

Giordano has served as a sales executive for Ruckus since August 2015, through the purchase of the company by Brocade, as well was the subsequent acquisition of by current owner Arris.

Related: New Ruckus Networks Chief Plans to Stay the Course

He’s replacing Ian Whiting, who was promoted to the Ruckus president position in June, after the departure of Dan Rabinovitsj, who is now in a VP-level position at Facebook.

In Ruckus’ top sales job, Giordano will report to Whiting and oversee revenue, gross margin and all aspects of the company’s go-to-market activities.

“Since joining Ruckus Networks three years ago, Bart Giordano has built a top-notch global sales team,” said Whiting, in a statement. “Bart’s been responsible for growing revenue and market share through strategic partners and verticals, and his team has secured major design wins with Google, Facebook, IBM, and Lenovo. We look forward to the continued opportunities that Bart and his team will bring to our business and our partners.”

Arris credits Giordano with establishing the cloud services practice for Ruckus’ software-as-a-service portfolio. During the first half of 2018, Ruckus Cloud Wi-Fi has been one fo the company’s fastest growing products, expanding internationally.

“Moving ahead, I look forward to leading a world-class organization to sell our industry-leading products and services alongside our channel partners. We’ll continue our focus to expand core vertical segments and deliver solutions that result in positive business outcomes for our customers,’ Giordano added. 

Ruckus Networks announced that it is providing its virtual SmartZone controllers and certified indoor/outdoor Wi-Fi access points in the expansion of a Facebook-led partner program aimed at building public Wi-Fi across Africa, India, and Indonesia.

The partner program is part of an expansion of Facebook’s Express Wi-Fi initiative, which is seeks to connect more individuals across the globe to the internet. Under Express Wi-Fi, local business owners install Wi-Fi hotspots, with high-speed internet services provided by local ISPs, mobile network operators and other Facebook broadband service partners.

The new vendor-focused partner programd within Express Wi-Fi not only initially includes Arris’ Ruckus Wireless unit, but also Arista, Cambium Networks--access point manufactures are being brought in to build Express Wi-Fi devices.

"We are committed to providing connectivity to people in the most remote areas of the world," said Ian Whiting, president of Ruckus Networks, in a statement. "We are excited to be a partner in Facebook's Express Wi-Fi Certified program, which is another important step in bridging the digital divide, giving individuals access to high-performance Wi-Fi networks. Ruckus strives to connect the unconnected, and we look forward to an ongoing partnership with Facebook.”

Related: New Ruckus Networks Chief Plans to Stay the Course

The Ruckus products featured in the Express Wi-Fi deployment include the company’s adaptive antenna BeamFlex technology. The patented technique aims to increase connection quality and range, delivering better voice and data communication and significantly improving power efficiency.

"Express Wi-Fi is part of Facebook's initiative to help bring more people online globally," said Guy Mordecai, Facebook’s product lead for Express Wi-Fi. "We're excited to launch the Express Wi-Fi Certified program and have Ruckus as one of our initial partners. With this program, we hope to expand the Express Wi-Fi ecosystem and work with partners like Ruckus to help bring affordable Wi-Fi solutions to emerging markets."

Arris has opened up a new enterprise-focused business unit following its recently closed deal for the Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch businesses from Brocade, but also sees some potential points of synergy with the residential components of its business.

RELATED: Arris Closes Ruckus Wireless Acquisition 

Arris on Monday offered an update on its business about two weeks after it acquired the Ruckus, and analysts wondered if it the company some revenue and technology synergies with respect to Arris’s CPE business and home WiFi, an area that has become of greater importance to cable operators and other service providers that work with the company.

Arris CEO Bruce McClelland acknowledged that there is a greater desire to build in more capable and extensive networking and wireless capabilities on the residential side of the broadband business.

There are no new residential products to discuss yet that would link in Ruckus, but “it’s definitely something that our teams are looking at.”

One potential area for more collaboration is 802.11ax, a new version of WiFi that will build in OFDMA capabilities from the cellular world along with other features, rather than trying to go back and revamp products that use older versions of WiFi.

He said Arris may look into how it can leverage investment on all sides, and perhaps create a common roadmap that addresses Arris’s enterprise, retail and service provider businesses. “Maybe there’s a tiered technology strategy or a variety of different approaches there,” McClelland said.

Dan Rabinovitsj, the new president of Ruckus Networks, noted that Ruckus did not pursue residential in part because the enterprise sector requires designs that can scale to higher densities and client counts and support a bigger range of features. However, some of Ruckus’s channel partners do dabble in residential by offering premium products for some homes that need technology capabilities that are akin to those of a small business.

“That’s where we start to see the lines blurring,” Rabinovitsj said, adding that there could be some opportunities to drive of that WiFi-related work into products like integrated wireless gateways.

Arris also provided a bigger overview of the company following its latest purchase.

One big change is a new reportable segment, called Enterprise Networks and led by Rabinovitsj, that operates alongside Arris’s CPE and Network and Cloud units. One difference is that Enterprise Networks will have its own product management and sales and marketing team focused on that channel. And it will retain the Ruckus brand.

In addition to carrying the new tagline of “Redefined Connectivity,” the portfolio of the newly combined version of Arris should be thought of differently now, McClelland said.

That portfolio now spans a Core, Growth and Emerging businesses.

Core is focused on large, mature markets where Arris already has a significant share in areas with regular upgrade cycles that fuel investment in new products. That includes areas like integrated CCAPs, set-tops and other CPE, and residential WiFi.

Growth, where investment will increase more rapidly, includes areas like enterprise managed services, smart cities, DOCSIS 3.1, the direct-to-consumer segment and upgrades to multi-gigabit Ethernet.

Emerging markets for Arris include next-gen PON platforms, CBRS technology, network virtualization and distributed access architectures, and Full Duplex DOCSIS.

Rabinovitsj noted that the wireless LAN market enjoys an 11.5% CAGR, but “our plan is to grow faster than the market, fueled by our leadership position in verticals that are growing fast such as managed services.”

“This trend will continue to grow as IT managers shift their attention away from managing networks to delivering applications and services,” he said.

Looking ahead Arris expects its Enterprise segment to bring in between $650 million to $700 million of sales in 2-18, and earnings of 23 cents to 31 cents per share.

“While most of our discussion today has been around products and technology and markets, this acquisition is really about people and knowhow,” McClelland said.

Still, a portion of the discussion focused on the opportunities in the CBRS spectrum band.

RELATED: Federated Wireless Targets ‘Third Model’ for Mobile

For its part, Ruckus is focusing on that with a product area it calls “OpenG.”

Rabinovitsj said chips for the infrastructure end of CBRS have been out for some time, as they typically lead the way before silicon for smartphones and tablets emerge. However, some devices that will work in the 3.5GHz segment have already appeared for the Japanese market.

RELATED: CBRS Spectrum to Open Windows of Opportunity for Cable Ops

For now, Ruckus is testing CBRS using off-the-shelf smartphones that are being used outside the U.S. McClelland pointed out that Arris sees early CBRS activity around fixed mobile broadband access with a gateway serving as the client device.

Arris on Friday closed its acquisition of the Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business from Broadcom, an agreement that wraps up about two weeks after Broadcom completed its merger with Brocade.

RELATED: Broadcom Wraps Brocade Deal

Dan Rabinovitsj, previously COO of Ruckus Wireless, now heads a new Arris Enterprise Networks business segment. Ruckus Networks, an Arris company, will operate as a dedicated business under the Enterprise Networks unit. About 1,700 Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch Business employees are joining Arris. 

“Given the cult-like following around the Ruckus brand, we didn’t want to see that disappear for obvious reasons,” Rabinovitsj said in a video that Arris posted with him and Arris CEO Bruce McClelland. “What we’re doing with the brand actually creates exactly the right set-up, so going forward people will be associating …this is still the Ruckus brand in the enterprise market.”

The acquisition plunges Arris, which had been offering Ruckus products under a previous reseller agreement, more deeply into the wireless and mobile technology and services sector at a time when many of its top cable customers, including Comcast and Charter Communications, are likewise expanding into those service areas.

RELATED: CBRS Spectrum to Open Windoes of Opportunity for Cable Ops 

Arris announced its proposed $800 million acquisition of then-Brocade’s Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business in January. Closure of that deal hinged on the completion of the Broadcom-Brocade combination. 

Arris will host a call at 8 a.m. ET on Dec. 14 to provide an update on Ruckus Wireless.

Early, on the big priorities following the closure of the deal will focus on employees as well as Ruckus’s customers and channel partners, McClelland noted in the video.

Connecting with employees, he said, is key in “making sure we tap into the enthusiasm, making sure they understand what the strategy is, what we’re trying to accomplish, how they fit into that equation.”