Will Ruckus And Google Put Phone Carriers Out Of Business?

Shares of Ruckus Wireless (NYSE: RKUS) are up seven percent following the company's announcement to deliver the first cloud-based municipal outdoor public Wi-Fi access and reports that Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is collaborating with the company.

Smart Wi-Fi in Lincoln, Nebraska

On Thursday, Ruckus and the City of Lincoln, Nebraska announced that they will deliver the first cloud-based municipal outdoor public Wi-Fi access using Ruckus Smart Access Management service (SAMs). Available now, “Lincoln_Free_WiFi_” is the city's initial step in plans to offer free and pervasive public Wi-Fi in and around Haymarket and Railyard.

The press release states, “The project is part of a multi-phased initiative under which the City of Lincoln and Ruckus are cooperating to deliver residents and visitors the city's first high-speed Wi-Fi access service. The first phase of the project brings free wireless connectivity to the historic Iron Horse Park, at the center of the new Railyard district and home to Lincoln's Haymarket Farmers Market. Powering the service, Ruckus Smart Access Management gives users hassle-free Wi-Fi access while allowing the city of Lincoln to easily manage and scale the service through the Cloud.”

Lincoln's free, outdoor public Wi-Fi, adds to the list of Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi network deployments around the world. Such deployments include the City and County of San Francisco, the City of San Jose, California and the City of York in the United Kingdom.

Google and Ruckus to Build Large-Scale Wi-Fi Network

In a Gigaom story on Thursday, author Kevin Fitchard reported that Google is working with Ruckus to build a large-scale Wi-Fi network in the cloud, which would enable businesses a place to hang its wireless routers.

Fitchard wrote, “Google has been working closely with Ruckus, trialing a new software-based wireless controller that virtualizes the management functions of the Wi-Fi network in the cloud, according to my source. The end result would be a nationwide — or even global — network that any business could join and any Google customer could access.”

With a large-scale Wi-Fi network, the controller manages the users access to multiple Wi-Fi access points. Gigaom emphasized the opportunity enabled by Ruckus with the controller in the cloud. “Ruckus removes it from the physical network and can hook tens or even hundreds of thousands of individual access points scattered throughout the world onto the same virtual network,” according to Fitchard. This translates to one massive home network for the consumer.

After securely logging in at your coffee spot, the individual would still be logged in with access to Benzinga across the road and even down state lines. For Google, this opportunity would be crucial in a plan to offer an “alternative wireless data service that circumvents the traditional mobile carrier industry.”

Ruckus Shares Soar Sky-High

Shares of Ruckus Wireless closed at $9.80 on Thursday. In after-hours trading, the stock jumped almost seven percent to $10.48. Shares continued to spike to $10.70 in premarket trading before settling back to Friday's open of $10.48.