RUCKCast

Hosted by RUCKUS Networks

Technology News EducationInterviews guests

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Episodes

140

Latest episode

Sep 2026

Language

EN-US

About the show

RUCKUS Networks brings you interesting topics with a wide range of guests to sit down and discuss all things that make up the product portfolio. We'll discuss topics including products from our portfolio, Wi-Fi, routing and switching and more! We can't wait to share with you what our teams are up to. You can contact the podcast team using the email address ruckcast@commscope.com for any feedback or ideas for future episodes. We would love to hear from you! To learn more about RUCKUS Networks products and solutions, you can visit www.ruckusnetworks.com/products and www.ruckusnetworks.com/ solutions If you have questions about how to use RUCKUS gear, The RUCKUS Education YouTube channel is a great resource and can be found at www.youtube.com/@ruckuseducation To connect with RUCKUS Networks, use www.ruckusnetworks.com/support/contact-us

Listen to episodes

60 recent

September 1, 2026Episode 522 min

RUCKCast #123: 6 GHz Beacons

Send us Fan Mail Recorded live from a hotel room — Jim found something in the field worth bringing straight to the podcast. This episode covers 6 GHz beacons, and specifically what happens when an AP's primary channel isn't set to a Preferred Scanning Channel (PSC). Jim walks through the basics of the 6 GHz channel plan — 59 total channels, only 15 PSCs — then digs into the actual discovery: a misconfigured AP will beacon on multiple channels at once (1, 5, 9, 13), using a "duplicate beacon" flag to point clients toward the real primary channel. Jim didn't believe it at first, so he pulled his own PCAPs to confirm it, and shows the correctly configured vs. misconfigured captures side by side. Topics covered: 6 GHz channel plan basics Preferred Scanning Channels (PSCs) and why they exist What happens when your primary channel isn't a PSC The "duplicate beacon" flag, explained via real packet captures Questions? Reach out — ruckcast@commscope.com . Intro music by Alex Grohl, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRWpx8VJ_E and https://pixabay.com/users/alexgrohl-25289918/

August 18, 2026Episode 427 min

RUCKCast #122: Wi-Fi Security in Public Places

Send us Fan Mail Public Wi-Fi means opening yourself up to some risk — airports, hotels, planes, anywhere you don't control the network. Jim uses the August 2026 Delta Flight 591 Wi-Fi incident as the jumping-off point: a rogue network showed up mid-flight mimicking the official service, and the crew shut the whole system down. Jim breaks down what actually happened, why "rogue" isn't even the right term for most of what people call rogue networks, and how an evil twin / deauth attack works in the first place. More importantly: this was completely preventable, and the fix already exists. Jim walks through 802.11w (Protected Management Frames), why it stops deauth attacks cold, and why OWE (Opportunistic Wireless Encryption) — encryption without authentication — would have shut this whole thing down before it started. Also covered: why "I had my VPN on" doesn't always mean what you think it means (a real story from Black Hat about split-tunnel VPNs betraying someone who thought they were covered), and three practical things to do before you connect to Wi-Fi anywhere you don't control it. Intro music by Alex Grohl, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRWpx8VJ_E and https://pixabay.com/users/alexgrohl-25289918/

August 4, 2026Episode 328 min

RUCKCast #121: The Minimum Problem with Minimum Basic Rates

Send us Fan Mail You sit down with your design tool, paint coverage to -67 dBm, target 100+ Mbps everywhere, validate it, and present a beautiful heatmap. Then you open the controller and leave the minimum basic rate at 6 Mbps — an MCS 0. Your design says MCS 0 should never happen. So why are you protecting it? In this episode, Jim walks through the real cost of low MBR settings: beacons and management frames burning airtime at the lowest configured rate, multicast traffic crawling while unicast flies at MCS 9+, inflated cell sizes creating co-channel interference you didn't design for, and neighboring APs deferring to frames serving clients that shouldn't exist in your coverage area. Using field data from a recent network audit, Jim shows what beacon overhead actually looks like when 11b is still enabled and MBR is left at defaults — and what changes when you raise it to 24 Mbps. The episode also tackles the IoT pushback head-on: possible vs. probable, why segmentation beats accommodation, and why the answer to "but what if a device can't connect at 24?" is to handle the exception, not punish a thousand clients for it. Design for probable, adjust for possible. Trust your own design. Intro music by Alex Grohl, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRWpx8VJ_E and https://pixabay.com/users/alexgrohl-25289918/

July 21, 2026Episode 230 min

RUCKCast #120 - What Is The RKS TX VAP Anyways?

Send us Fan Mail Ever seen a mysterious SSID called RKS-TX-VAP on your 6 GHz radio that you didn't configure and can't connect to? In this episode, Jim breaks down what the RUCKUS Transmit VAP actually is, how it ties into Multi-BSSID, and why it cuts beacon airtime by over 50%. Intro music by Alex Grohl, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRWpx8VJ_E and https://pixabay.com/users/alexgrohl-25289918/

July 7, 2026Episode 130 min

RUCKCast #119 - Stop Mounting Your APs Like You Hate Physics

Send us Fan Mail The podcast is back. After a year on the road fixing broken networks, Jim's recommitting to RUCKCast — and kicking off the return with the one problem that kept showing up everywhere he traveled: people mounting APs like they hate physics. This one's about outdoor and external antennas — the RUCKUS T-series — and the mistakes that quietly wreck a good design. The big one: everybody's got directional antennas backwards. A directional antenna's real job isn't getting signal where you want it — it's keeping signal away from where you don't. Get that reversed and you end up doing what Jim keeps finding in the field: back-to-back directionals on a pole, double the APs, double the channels, double the cost, for gain you're probably not even getting. Then the practical half: how to tell a correctly-mounted AP from a botched one just by looking at a photo. Dome-down vs. the arrow in your design tool. The N-female ports with the weatherproof caps that tell you an AP is directional, not omni — two on a T350 SE, four on a T750 SE. Because no good design survives first contact with an installer, and the fix is catching it from the picture before they leave the site. Plus a live walk-through of a predictive tool on a football field — what each pattern actually looks like, and a non-standard rotate-and-downtilt trick for tight warehouse-aisle cells. Watch it on YouTube if you can — there's a lot to see. Intro music by Alex Grohl, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRWpx8VJ_E and https://pixabay.com/users/alexgrohl-25289918/

August 12, 2025Episode 725 min

RUCKCast #118 - WLPC Prague 2025

Send us Fan Mail https://thewlpc.com for all things WLPC This episode of the RUCKCast explores the upcoming WLPC conference in Prague, scheduled for October. The discussion focuses on why this event has become essential for wireless professionals and network engineers looking to stay at the forefront of the industry. The episode highlights the compelling reasons to attend WLPC Prague, from cutting-edge technical sessions to invaluable networking opportunities. Featured prominently are the RUCKUS technical experts who will be presenting at the conference, sharing their expertise on the latest wireless innovations and networking solutions. Whether you're considering attending your first WLPC event or you're a conference veteran, this episode provides insights into what makes WLPC Prague a standout destination for anyone serious about advancing their wireless technology knowledge and connecting with industry leaders. Intro music by Alex Grohl, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRWpx8VJ_E and https://pixabay.com/users/alexgrohl-25289918/

July 29, 2025Episode 627 min

RUCKCast #117 - Doing More with Less

Send us Fan Mail This episode explores a controversial topic: how network designers often over-engineer Wi-Fi systems due to their unique perspective on network planning. Unlike sales-focused approaches that may emphasize more equipment, designers sometimes create unnecessarily complex solutions. Join Jim as he demonstrates how to design efficient networks that deliver strong performance while potentially using fewer resources than traditional approaches. Learn practical strategies for right-sizing your Wi-Fi deployment without compromising network quality or user experience. Intro music by Alex Grohl, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRWpx8VJ_E and https://pixabay.com/users/alexgrohl-25289918/

July 15, 2025Episode 532 min

RUCKCast #116 - Hamina Reporting

Send us Fan Mail This week's RUCKCast dives into Hamina Wireless's online reporting feature—a revolutionary upgrade from traditional PDF reports. This new feature transforms how you examine and understand your proposed network's performance within your facility. The shift in Wi-Fi report sharing is so significant that we dedicated an entire episode to breaking it down. You'll learn how to navigate these advanced reports, switch between different views, and explore Wi-Fi data in ways you've never experienced before. Intro music by Alex Grohl, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRWpx8VJ_E and https://pixabay.com/users/alexgrohl-25289918/

July 1, 2025Episode 428 min

RUCKCast #115 - Introduction to RMN

Send us Fan Mail Join Jim Palmer as he sits down with Jim Doherty and Jerry Patton to learn about RUCKUS Managed Networks, a comprehensive solution designed to simplify network management for organizations of all sizes. In this episode, the team explores how RUCKUS Managed Networks delivers expert-level network oversight, proactive monitoring, and seamless support, allowing businesses to focus on their core operations while ensuring optimal network performance. Discover the key benefits, real-world applications, and how this managed service offering can transform your organization's networking approach. To contact RMN, use this link and at the end, tell them you want to talk to the Jim's from RMN https://www.ruckusnetworks.com/support/contact-us/contact-us-sales/ Intro music by Alex Grohl, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRWpx8VJ_E and https://pixabay.com/users/alexgrohl-25289918/

June 17, 2025Episode 332 min

RUCKCast #114 - Rule Breakers!

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we dive into the unspoken rules of networking—those best practices, standards, and protocols that guide how we build and manage networks. But what happens when sticking to the rules just doesn’t cut it? Jim sits down with Aaron Lee to explore the moments when bending or even breaking the rules leads to better outcomes or utter disaster. From unconventional designs to real-world constraints, hear the stories behind the exceptions, the lessons learned, and why sometimes doing things “the wrong way” is exactly what’s needed, or not... Intro music by Alex Grohl, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRWpx8VJ_E and https://pixabay.com/users/alexgrohl-25289918/