Considered one of the world’s most luxurious resorts, Sandals was stuck. Each of their sprawling properties, over 20 scattered throughout the Caribbean, consumed huge amounts of beachside land with guests spending more time outside their rooms than in them, and looking for Wi-Fi.

Even though guests were on vacation, more and more were bringing handheld devices such as iPhones, Blackberrys, laptops, Sony PSPs and other Wi-Fi enabled gadgets to stay in touch.

Around the property, Sandals also wanted to use digital signs that informed guests about activities, events and services. They wanted use wireless for point-of-sale services as well as voice over IP so staff could easily stay in touch as they roamed about the resorts. Wi-Fi seemed to be the ideal solution.

Sandals had already sprinkled Wi-Fi access points in the main lobby and some guest rooms, but customers were complaining about dropped connections, slow speeds and spotty coverage. Meanwhile, there was no economical way to extend Wi-Fi to outdoor public areas, like gift shops, pools and patios, medical stations, bell desks, cabanas, fi tness centers and spas.

“Charging guests $13.99 a day for Wi-Fi service they could only get in a very limited area of a huge resort didn’t help business,” said Bobby Stewart, Treasury Director at Sandals. “Sandals built a reputation providing luxury services that are simply exceptional. Why should providing a world-class Wi-Fi service for our guests be any different? Our goal was to go the extra mile and build a very reliable and robust network that was a good value and give guests the kind of performance and convenience they were looking for.”

Because the properties were so large and deployment would be time-consuming, Sandals wanted to install a network that would scale with respect to speed, capacity and user density. 802.11n was the technology of choice. And all-802.11n indoor/outdoor network needed to be manageable as a single WLAN from a central point. Outdoor access points needed to be deployed without the expense or disruption of pulling Ethernet cabling to each Wi-Fi node: so wireless 802.11n meshing was desired.

“We couldn’t fi nd a single vendor that could support all these requirements,” said Stewart. “And the economics of deploying what we wanted in a piecemeal fashion was daunting. Then we found Ruckus.”

After selecting Nomadix as their Internet gateway, Sandal’s reseller introduced them to the Ruckus Wireless ZoneFlex system. “At fi rst we just didn’t believe the story. It was too good to be true:

COMPANY OVERVIEWHeadquartered in Montego Bay, Jamaica, Sandals Resorts International owns and operates 20 properties with over 5,000 guest rooms throughout the Caribbean that consume more than 750 acres of beachside. The Sandals family of luxury resorts includes the Sandals Resorts, Beaches Resorts and The Royal Plantation Collection.

REQUIREMENTS

All-802.11n indoor/outdoor network• Unifi ed management• Single point of administration• Complete Wi-Fi coverage• Consistent performance everywhere• Access points without Ethernet cabling• Simplifi ed deployment• Reliable support for streaming video, • voice and data applications

SOLUTION

101 ZoneFlex 7942 802.11n Smart Mesh • outdoor APs82 ZoneFlex 7942 802.11n Smart Mesh • indoor AP’s13 ZoneDirector 1025 WLAN controllers • 2 ZoneDirector 1050 WLAN controllers• 3 ZoneDirector 1012 WLAN controllers•

BENEFITS

High-performance, all-802.11n • indoor/outdoor wireless network

Unified administration and management•

Extended signal coverage with fewer APs•

More reliable Wi-Fi connectivity•

Simplified management from a single • console

Ability to support video and voice •

HospitalityC A S E S T U D Y

Sandals Takes Vacation from Vanilla Wi-Fi with All 802.11n Indoor/Outdoor Smart Mesh Network

Sandals Grande Ocho Rios Beach & Villa Resort, a 100-acre property, houses 8 restaurants and 12 bars, 7 outdoor pools, 93 semi-private pools, 4 tennis courts, 2 fi tness centers, 2 self-contained spas, 22 whirlpools and 4 saunas.

Right: Sandals Grande St. Lucian resorts is one of Sandals largest

properties consuming over 44 acres of beachside.

“After evaluating a

number of wireless

LAN products, we

weren’t able to fi nd a

single system capable

of delivering the

speed, reliability and

coverage — indoors

and out — that could

be managed as a

unifi ed network.

Ruckus has combined

some very unique

capabilities like smart

antenna, wireless

meshing and 802.11n

into a single system

that addresses all our

indoor and outdoor

requirements with the

ability to manage the

entire infrastructure

from a single point.”

Bobby StewartTreasury DirectorSandals Resorts International

HospitalityC A S E S T U D Y

indoor/outdoor APs that could be meshed, 802.11n indoor and outdoor APs at 50 percent less cost than any competitive offering, centralized management and directional antennas that could be controlled by software. So we had to give it a good test.”

Stewart and his team began testing the ZoneFlex 802.11n smart meshing system in a single property to see if it lived up to its claims and if a standard model could be established that could be duplicated across all the Sandals properties. After outfi tting a single resort, Sandals tested coverage and performance. The Ruckus ZoneFlex system delivered complete coverage of the outdoor grounds as well as providing indoor coverage to previously unreachable guest rooms.

“We believed 802.11n would give us the greatest fl exibility and headroom in terms of what we might want to do in the future,” said Stewart. “Digital signage, streaming video and voice over Wi-Fi are all applications we are actively pursuing. So we needed a Wi-Fi infrastructure that could support all these applications on a single infrastructure. Ruckus Wireless’ experience with video and extensive coverage was a big appeal to us.”

ZoneFlex 802.11n outdoor Smart Mesh APs were placed on the sides of buildings or hidden under the roof structures of pagodas and villas. With the 802.11n Smart Mesh APs, the only additional requirement was power. Each outdoor Smart Mesh AP automatically fi nds the highest performing connection to an intermediate Wi-Fi node. Because the outdoor nodes support 802.11n and a high-gain antenna system, node counts are minimized while performance is maximized.

Fewer mesh hops means higher performance. And with the ability to automatically steer Wi-Fi signals around obstacles and interference, connectivity between mesh nodes remains extremely reliable, without the need for manual intervention in the event of a problem.

Indoors, ZoneFlex 7942 Smart Wi-Fi mesh APs were deployed to provide more complete coverage in guest rooms. A ZoneDirector Smart WLAN controller provides RF management and central administration for indoor and outdoor APs (wired or Mesh).

“We were amazed at how few APs we needed with this much space and how easily the system was to deploy,” said Stewart. “We needed only 10 APs to provide complete common area coverage in our Grande St. Lucian resort which covers almost 45 acres.”

For staff and certain guests, Sandals plans to deploy Wi-Fi phones so people can keep track of each other. They will also use the Smart Wi-Fi network to support plasma TVs used as digital signs to display event, activity and service information.

Sandals now has a cost-effective and feature-rich wireless model they could roll out to its remaining 20 properties. They are currently installing over 100 outdoor ZoneFlex 802.11n APs, 80 802.11n indoor APs and 20 ZoneDirector Smart WLAN controllers.

“The Ruckus ZoneFlex system was simply the most cost-effective wireless LAN system we could fi nd with the precise set of functions we needed — indoors and out.”

w w w. r u c k u s w i r e l e s s . c o mCopyright © 2009, Ruckus Wireless, Inc. All rights reserved. Ruckus Wireless and Ruckus Wireless design are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Ruckus Wireless, the Ruckus Wireless logo, BeamFlex, ZoneFlex, MediaFlex, MetroFlex, FlexMaster, ZoneDirector, SpeedFlex, SmartCast, and Dynamic PSK are trademarks of Ruckus Wireless, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document or Website are the property of their respective owners. 802-70957-001 rev 02