RUCKUS end-of-life: the dates CommScope publishes, and how to read them

The RUCKUS lifecycle, stage by stage

When RUCKUS retires a product it announces the plan publicly, keeps selling it for roughly six more months, and keeps shipping for about six months after that. The milestones that matter to you as an owner are:

• End of Sale (EoS): the last day the product can be ordered. Your support clock starts here.
• End of Software Maintenance: the last day RUCKUS ships regular software updates and bug fixes. The device still runs and is still supported for hardware, but the code stops improving. For ICX switches this typically lands one year after End of Sale.
• End of Support, also called Last Date of Support: the last day for technical support and advanced hardware replacement under an active entitlement. This is 5 years after End of Sale. After it, the product is obsolete.

The one to plan around is End of Support. Past that date an unsupported switch or access point is a standing security and compliance risk, with no patches and no replacement path.

Key RUCKUS dates to know

These End of Support dates come from the official RUCKUS datelines. They are the operationally meaningful date, the last day of support, not the earlier End of Sale.

Current Wi-Fi 6, 6E and Wi-Fi 7 access points (for example the R560, R650, R750, R760 and R770) and the newest ICX switches have no announced end-of-life yet, so they should stay untracked for a date until CommScope publishes one.

ICX switches vs access points

RUCKUS uses the same five-year-support rule across the board, but the wording differs slightly. ICX switches carry an explicit End of Software Maintenance date between End of Sale and End of Support, so a switch can be a year past its last firmware update while still eligible for hardware replacement. Access points tend to move more directly from End of Sale to End of Support. Either way, the date that ends everything is End of Support.

Where to find the official dates

1. The datelines document. RUCKUS maintains a single End of Sale / End of Life Product Datelines file on the RUCKUS Support site that lists every retired model with its End of Sale, End of Software Maintenance and End of Support dates. This is the authoritative source.

2. Individual End of Sale announcements. Major ICX and AP retirements also get their own bulletin on the support site, which repeats the same three dates and adds the Last Ship date.

3. Your support portal. Entitlement and contract status for a specific serial number live in the RUCKUS Support portal, which tells you whether a given unit is still covered today.

Track it once, stop checking

RUCKUS makes the dates easy to find, but a datelines PDF does not warn you when a date is approaching. If you import your fleet into EOL Tracking, RUCKUS models with a known End of Support date are filled in automatically, and you get a warning months before each one lands. Assets we do not have a date for yet stay flagged as needing one, so nothing is silently assumed.