More Wi-Fi consolidation as Riverbed acquires Xirrus

Network management company Riverbed announced a definitive agreement to acquire Wi-Fi provider Xirrus, for an undisclosed fee. The move is just the latest in a string of acquisitions of standalone Wi-Fi companies, following Hewlett Packard’s purchase of Aruba in 2015 and the journeys of Ruckus Wireless, which was first bought by Brocade and is now on its way to being a part of Arris.

While Riverbed said it would continue to offer Xirrus’ Wi-Fi products as a standalone business, its interest in Xirrus’ Wi-Fi technology is most likely in the enterprise office market. While nowhere near the size of players like Cisco or Aruba in the stadium wireless networking arena, Xirrus did have some wins in the space, including deals where its equipment was resold by Avaya. More as we hear more on the deal.

Arris to acquire Ruckus from Brocade as part of $800 million deal

Screen Shot 2017-02-22 at 6.17.41 PMThe wireless networking business once known as Ruckus Wireless is finding a new home, as Arris announced today that it plans to buy Ruckus from current owner Brocade as part of an $800 million deal that also includes Brocade’s ICX switch business.

Brocade, which purchased Ruckus for $1.2 billion earlier this year, is being acquired itself, by chipmaker Broadcom in a $5.5 billion deal announced last November.

According to an Arris release, the deal will be completed when Broadcom’s purchase of Brocade closes, an event expected to happen at the end of July.

We’ve got some calls in to see what, if anything, will happen to the growing stadium networking business at Ruckus, which in the past year has seen Ruckus Wi-Fi gear in arenas like Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis and Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. Stay tuned!

Will stadiums soon be able to rent their Wi-Fi networks from equipment vendors?

Nationwide Arena. Credit: Columbus Blue Jackets

Nationwide Arena. Credit: Columbus Blue Jackets

If it costs too much to buy a Wi-Fi network for your stadium, why not rent one instead?

A fairly common option in the world of enterprise networking, the ability to rent, or lease a fully operational Wi-Fi network may soon be coming to the world of sports stadiums and other large public venues, if it isn’t here already. Three of the largest Wi-Fi gear suppliers, Cisco, Aruba and Ruckus, already have public offers of network leasing arrangements, where venue owners could pay some kind of monthly or recurring fee for network setup and operation, instead of buying equipment outright. And Cisco, another leader in the marketplace, is rumored to be offering full-control lease-type arrangements for stadium Wi-Fi networks, possibly beginning with the new Wi-Fi network being built at the SAP Center in San Jose.

Though no large sports stadium has yet publicly announced a deal to lease, or in networking lingo, to buy a “Network as a service,” or NaaS, the idea is potentially attractive to stadium owners and operators, many of whom have struggled with the return-on-investment question ever since the idea of putting wireless networks in stadiums has emerged. While cellular carriers have so far borne the lion’s share of the costs of deploying enhanced cellular systems like DAS (distributed antenna system) in stadiums, the question of “who will pay for the Wi-Fi” is still a big one for many venues, especially those that are only filled several times a year.

The benefits of moving to opex vs. capex

Bart Giordano, vice president of business development for the Ruckus business unit at Brocade, said the idea of leasing a stadium network could be attractive especially to venue owners who don’t have the upfront capital necessary to pay for Wi-Fi, a cost that could run into the tens of millions of dollars.

Under new parent Brocade, Ruckus Wi-Fi gear can be obtained via something called the Brocade Network Subscription, a NaaS program that Giordano said “converts it all to opex — you subscribe to the network and pay a monthly service fee.” Under the subscription program, Giordano said Brocade/Ruckus will actually own the equipment, allowing the venue owner the flexibility of being able to return it or upgrade it as needed.

With many stadiums that deployed Wi-Fi several years ago already going through significant upgrades, the idea of a leased network that could be more easily refreshed with new technology might soon gain favor. Though no Ruckus stadium subscribers have yet been announced, Giordano said “some are coming.”

Aruba, now a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, has a similar subscription model plan for enterprise wireless deployments, one which company representatives said could be used by stadiums as well. Both companies said such deals could possibly come via consulting partnerships, where the consultant firm manages the relationship and deployment/operation details.

Cisco also has a leasing option available for wireless networks, but so far has not made any public announcements of such deals in the sports stadium marketplace. However, there are reports of Cisco taking a more active role in the ownership, deployment and operation of stadium networks, like the Cisco-powered Wi-Fi currently being installed at the SAP Center in San Jose, home of the NHL’s Sharks. So far, neither Cisco nor the Sharks will comment on any business specifics of the new Wi-Fi network other than its use of Cisco gear.

Can leasing work for stadiums?

While the leasing idea for stadiums isn’t new, the business model has met some challenges along the way of the short history of wireless networks in large venues. So far, third-party integrators like Mobilitie, ExteNet Systems and Boingo have crafted lease-like deals in which the venue does not pay the full cost of the network but instead allows the operators to run networks (typically both DAS and Wi-Fi), earning money by leasing space on those networks to wireless carriers or by selling advertising or sponsorships.

Another leasing model, one that crashed and burned, was the one employed by SignalShare, a company now in bankruptcy proceedings with legal claims of fraudulent business practices against it. SignalShare, which also offered venues networks for a monthly cost, may have been hampered by a lack of financial resources, something that shouldn’t be an issue for companies the size of Cisco, HP and Brocade, who will mainly be offering leases on equipment they manufacture themselves. The larger equipment vendors may also not be under as much pressure as SignalShare was to earn revenues on the network operations, which may make them better able to succeed in the NaaS space.

And while the idea sounds good in theory, there are still unanswered questions about how the leases would work, and whether they will make good business sense for both sides. Unlike enterprise operations in traditional offices, stadium networks are far more complex to install and operate, especially those being retrofitted in stadiums built decades ago. Stadium networks also have a much different operational profile, with traffic coming in large spikes rather than daily workday routines.

But stadium networks can also act as public advertisements of sorts, gaining more attention for vendors in PR than perhaps in direct profits. As the market matures and vendors seek out potential customers who have shied away from Wi-Fi in the past due to upfront costs, leasing may be a way forward for both sides — as long as both can find a benefit to the deal.

Pacers get new Wi-Fi network from Ruckus to replace SignalShare

Screen Shot 2016-10-24 at 1.15.36 PMThe Indiana Pacers have signed a 3-year deal with Ruckus Wireless and Wi-Fi analytics and deployment firm Purple to put a new Wi-Fi network into Bankers Life Fieldhouse, the home of both the NBA’s Pacers and the WNBA’s Indiana Fever.

The new network, which the firms said would use 437 Ruckus Wi-Fi APs, will replace a Wi-Fi network installed at Bankers Life Fieldhouse by SignalShare, a Wi-Fi deployment firm that recently went bankrupt in the middle of legal issues that alleged fraudulent practices. According to Ruckus, the new network should be live by early December; stay tuned for a more thorough profile of the new deployment.

So far, all of the teams that we’ve contacted who were caught up in the SignalShare snafu (under which some of the network leases were being offered for auction before the SignalShare bankruptcy put a halt to things) seem to be coming out of the mess OK. The Jacksonville Jaguars have a new manager for their Wi-Fi network, and the Pacers will have a new Ruckus-gear network.

It’s still a little unclear as to what is happening at the Golden State Warriors’ Oracle Arena, but press representatives there said the building will have an Extreme Networks Wi-Fi deployment up and running for this season; previously, SignalShare had run the network using Extreme gear so our best guess is that Extreme somehow took over the SignalShare lease. Neither the Warriors nor Extreme would comment on any SignalShare matters.

In Indianapolis, the press release said that Purple, previously known as Purple WiFi (a “cloud-based marketing and analytics WiFi software company,” according to the firm), will be providing analytics from the Wi-Fi network to the Pacers. Terms of the deal were not diclosed, so it is unknown if Purple is paying for the Wi-Fi gear and making money off analytics and advertising sales; again, stay tuned for more details when we speak to the Pacers IT team in more detail.

Extreme buys Zebra’s WLAN biz for $55 million

Wi-Fi gear vendor Extreme Networks beefed up its lineup today with the acquisition of the wireless LAN business of Zebra Technologies, a $55 million deal that is scheduled to close later this year.

While it’s not apparent how the Zebra acquisition will affect Extreme’s stadium and large public venue businesses, it seems like some of the Zebra products including their security and managed services offerings could be a fit for teams in the market for Wi-Fi.

Network World has a good breakdown of the deal, including a quote from Gartner which says Zebra gear should be on the short list for customers in the retail and hospitality businesses (among others) as well as verticals with location requirements, which would seem to include stadiums. Any Zebra users in stadium deployments out there, give us a holler and let us know what you think.

At the very least, the deal is just another sign of consolidation in the Wi-Fi industry, a trend that has seen Brocade buying Ruckus and HP buying Aruba in the bigger deals to date.

Wi-Fi consolidation continues: Brocade buys Ruckus for $1.2 B

Screen Shot 2016-04-04 at 11.08.16 AMFollowing last year’s $3 billion purchase of Aruba Networks by Hewlett Packard, the Wi-Fi gear industry consolidation continued today with the announcement of Brocade buying Ruckus Wireless for $1.2 billion.

For the stadium-networking industry, the news may mean that Ruckus gear may find its way into more potential deals, thanks to the deeper pockets and integration possibilities brought to the table by Brocade, which competes in the back-end network gear market against companies like Cisco. Though it’s not known to have scored many stadium deals, Brocade is the back-end network supplier for Levi’s Stadium, which is a close-by neighbor to Brocade’s San Jose headquarters. It is also part of the network gear being used at the new Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, where Ruckus will provide the Wi-Fi gear, perhaps a deal where the purchase relationship got started.

Ruckus, which had come close but lost two high-profile Wi-Fi deals (for the San Jose Earthquakes’ new stadium, and for the Wi-Fi network at NRG Stadium in Houston), had said publicly that it did not participate in “pay for play” deals, where a gear manufacturer might provide discounts or payments for stadiums to use their equipment. Ruckus has won some other high-profile stadium deals recently, including at Angels Stadium in Anaheim.

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