Ruckus Wireless, Inc has been selected by Le Pain Quotidien (LPQ) to supply it with Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi products and technology for use within its corporate headquarters and bakery stores across the US.

To improve service efficiency and guest access, LPQ is standardising on Ruckus ZoneFlex dual-band 802.11n Smart Wi-Fi indoor and outdoor access points for its US retail locations.

The Smart Wi-Fi products are being used to support line of business applications such as in-store electronic point-of-sale systems that give staff greater flexibility and a better way to take orders and provide better service.

The wi-fi access points integrate Ruckus BeamFlex+ adaptive antenna array technology that directs RF energy toward each client, continually picking the fastest path for each packet. This provides greater coverage and the ability to deliver stronger wi-fi signals to users, even as environmental conditions change.

The antenna arrays in Ruckus APs also leverage dual-polarisation to allow signals to be transmitted and received at different angles. This enables more consistent wi-fi connectivity to mobile devices, such as tablets, that are constantly changing orientation.

Finally, Ruckus adaptive antenna arrays also support ChannelFly, a channel assignment technology that uses channel performance determinations to increase overall system capacity. All of these capabilities are performed in each Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi AP without any involvement from the centralised controller.

LPQ has more than 185 bakery-café locations worldwide in 17 countries. According to the company, it wanted better leverage wi-fi “to improve the customer experience while increasing the efficiency of its operations”. Improved wi-fi was also considered to be a good way to attract and retain customers.

Cezary Moroz, IT director for LPQ, said: “Given the unprecedented use of smart mobile devices within nearly every facet of our society, we view wi-fi not only as a competitive necessity but more importantly as a strategic utility that can be used in a myriad of ways to improve the operation of our business. The problem is we found that not all wi-fi is created equal.”


Raymond Stensholt, IT manager for LPQ, said: “What we needed was a more industrial-strength, PCI-compliant wi-fi system that not only was easy to manage from a single point but also one that would provide an exceptional wireless experience with consistent performance to multiple user groups, especially as environmental conditions changed. We found the Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi system to be one of the only WLAN solutions to really address these requirements head-on.”

Moroz added that sufficient wi-fi has both a direct and indirect impact in increasing revenue. “Interference, coverage and reliable connectivity were also becoming real issues for us,” he said.

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