Your Industry News: aSpanish Construction Companies FCC and ACCIONA Implement Employee Tracking Solution for Tunnel Workers' Safety, With Ekahau's T301BD Wireless LAN Staff Badge and Pager

Ekahau Inc., the worldwide leader in High Performance Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), today announced that together with its Spanish integration partner, BAUTEL Comunicaciones S.L., it has successfully implemented a solution to track workers in underground tunnel projects as a joint venture with the construction companies FCC (Fomento de Construcciones Y Contratas, S.A.) and ACCIONA S.A.. The implementation is based on the Ekahau Wi-Fi RTLS solution that provides real-time location information on the whereabouts of people and assets anywhere within a sites Wi-Fi network coverage area, using the existing enterprise Wi-Fi network as the infrastructure platform.

"This was the first deployment we have done using Ekahau's new T301BD badge," comments Mr Fernando Carnicero, Manager at Bautel Comunicaciones S.L.. "Ekahau is an ideal solution for this purpose, as it provides both the real-time location of the worker in case of an emergency, but also two-way communication with the workers in the tunnel, through the badge's text messaging capability. This has a very clear value to the construction company to increase the safety of its employees, as the construction site is operational 24/7 in 3 work shifts."

The current implementation is operational in the Vigo, Galicia, construction project, where FCC - ACCIONA is excavating 2 tunnels both 8 kilometers (5 miles) in length. The Wi-Fi network is installed in the tunnels using fiber optic cabling for data, voice and tracking purposes. As the workers enter the tunnel in the beginning of their shift, they check in their ID cards for an Ekahau wireless T301BD safety badge. In case of an emergency, management is immediately alerted with the last known location of each worker in the tunnel. The solution also enables workers to call for help by pulling the emergency switch on the badge itself. Once the switch is pulled, safety personnel and management receive the help request with the location information of the incident.

"We have seen an increasing demand for personnel safety applications in several industries." comments Mr Arttu Huhtiniemi, Ekahau VP Product Management. "This Spanish tunnel work site is an excellent example of the value Ekahau's technology can provide in safeguarding the day to day well being of individual workers in these types of environments. Unlike other similar active RFID solutions, Ekahau uses the existing Wi-Fi network as the infrastructure, so the customer only needs to deploy Ekahau software and tags, which makes the deployment very fast and cost effective. In addition, the system provides a full 2-way communication capability for workers through text messaging over Wi-Fi, which is not available from any other RTLS vendor."

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RFID News: The Southeast Alabama Medical Center (SAMC) in Dothan, Ala. has chosen to expand its Ekahau Real Time Location System (RTLS) to include campus-wide monitoring of its refrigerators and freezers.

SAMC deployed Ekahau’s RTLS campuswide earlier this year to track critical clinical assets, such as infusion pumps and patient monitors over its Wi-Fi network.

SAMC expanded the system to monitor the temperature of perishable items contained within its freezers and refrigerators, including food, medicine, organs, and blood and tissue samples. Any significant changes in the temperature could mean drastic losses of these items, and so SAMC looked to implement a monitoring system with alarm capabilities.

The system consists of Wi-Fi based T301t temperature monitoring tags, the Ekahau Positioning Engine and Tag Management platform, as well as Ekahau’s Vision solution that manages all the system’s alarms and escalation paths. The T301t tags are able to measure temperatures from -200C to + 200 C and feature on-board alarming via a flashing indicator and buzzer.

In the future SAMC expects to grow the RTLS system, which works on its existing Wi-Fi network, to track several thousand more assets.

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Coolest Gadgets: Ekahau might not be familiar to many people, but it boasts the title of being the leading provider of High Performance Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) in the market. Currently, they have just expanded their hardware portfolio with a new device – the T301W, a wristband tag that was specially designed to be used in applications that determine the precise location of people. Being small in size, it fits onto your wrist comfortably, making it the ideal device for use in hospitals. After all, knowing the real-time location of an adult patient, child or a visitor in hospitals is a requirement for ensuring patient safety and satisfaction.
Apart from that, the wristband tag would also be at home when used in other places including amusement parks, cruise ships and other hospitality venues – basically anywhere where there is a potential for children or adults to be separated from their group. This got me thinking as well – it would be great for tour operators to slap their ‘party’ with one of these each just in case the more independent minded tourists chart out their own trail, especially in crowded places. Businesses can also keep track of visitors to make sure they remain off-limits to sensitive areas, hence preventing unwarranted snooping around.

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Wireless Developer Network: Reston, VA - Ekahau Inc., a leading provider of Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), today announced a new Ekahau Site Survey (ESS, version 4.6), which adds time-saving site survey capabilities for 802.11n, as well as legacy 802.11a/b/g networks. ESS is the only tool in the market to combine passive survey and active end-to-end Wi-Fi network testing – a feature called Hybrid Survey. With a single site survey walkthrough, the passive testing will provide information on the wireless signals, while the active testing measures end-to-end connectivity status, packet loss, delay times and roaming history. This cuts the survey time to one-third when compared to competing site survey solutions.

Hybrid Survey quickly reveals hard-to-detect network design errors that are not seen by traditional site survey tools or Wi-Fi management software. Such errors may be caused by mis-configured security settings, Ethernet cabling and routing issues, as well as access point hardware failures, such as bridging failures and radio malfunctions. The packet loss and delay time measurements of the Hybrid Survey feature are increasingly important with 802.11n networks running VoIP applications, for example. At the same time, the passive measurements produce crystal-clear coverage and performance maps of the facility.

In addition to Hybrid Survey, the traditional passive measurements in the new ESS are more comprehensive: The new noise display allows instant detection of areas with high noise levels. In case of excessive noise levels, Ekahau Site Survey users also have the option to use the recently announced Spectrum Analyzer to further analyze and eliminate sources of noise.

“The message from the field is clear: Our customers and partners want to minimize the time spent deploying and troubleshooting Wi-Fi. The Hybrid Survey feature in Ekahau Site Survey 4.6 allows the user to completely verify the network with just one walk-through site survey.” said Jussi Kiviniemi, senior product manager at Ekahau. “The new ESS also demystifies Wi-Fi troubleshooting: simply take the laptop to the problematic location, and ESS will completely test the network – and tell you what’s wrong.”

Kiviniemi continued: “What further differentiates Ekahau Site Survey from its competition is its unique capability to use the collected site survey data for asset and people tracking applications (RTLS), just by adding Wi-Fi tags and the RTLS software. This means that ESS users are actually hitting three birds with one stone: during a single survey they perform passive as well as end-to-end testing, and calibrate the RTLS”. Ekahau RTLS is a Wi-Fi location tracking solution chosen by hundreds of enterprise customers in industries like healthcare, mining, and government for the purpose of asset tracking, staff safety, and process improvement applications.

Rick Murphy, course director for Wireless Training Solutions, and senior instructor of the CWNP Program added, “as the world’s authority on Wi-Fi network design and training, we of the CWNP Program stress the careful planning, implementation, and verification of wireless network designs. Wireless LAN deployment is subject to many pitfalls, especially today, with the high level of performance required by voice and video transmissions being carried over Wi-Fi. In addition, the new features offered by 802.11n make designing the wireless LAN more complicated than ever. We are extremely pleased to see our partner Ekahau release this new level of technology, which we feel will make manual site surveys faster, more comprehensive, and more accurate.”

Ekahau Site Survey 4.6 also brings improvements for 802.11n capabilities, and various usability improvements. Ekahau Site Survey 4.6 will be available at the beginning of November from Ekahau and its resellers and distributors. Reduced introductory pricing is available as of today, until the end of November. More information is available at www.ekahau.com/ess.

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Press Release Point: Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, UK, 18 June 2009 – Jade Communications, one of the UK’s leading providers of mobile voice and data communications technologies for business, today announced that it has been appointed as a UK Reseller for Ekahau’s Wi-Fi based RTLS (Real time Location Systems) tracking and communication solutions.

“Ekahau RTLS is the only Wi-Fi-based location tracking solution that can operate over any brand or generation of Wi-Fi network while offering room-, floor- and building-level accuracy,” says Mark Brackley, Managing Director of Jade Communications. “Because the Ekahau system relies on existing Wi-Fi infrastructure, it offers superior tracking accuracy at a fraction of what proprietary systems cost and does not disrupt day-to-day business operations.”



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PRNewswire: Ekahau Inc., a leading provider of Wi-Fi-based Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS), today announced that UK HealthCare is deploying Ekahau RTLS to track mobile medical equipment at the University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Hospital in Lexington, KY. Chandler Hospital is the first member of the University HealthSystems Consortium (UHC) to deploy the Ekahau RTLS solution under a preferred-provider agreement announced earlier this year.

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Newswire: RESTON, Virginia, Jan. 7 /CNW/ - Ekahau Inc., a leading provider of Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), today announced that after a competitive bid process it was awarded a multi-year agreement with University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) to provide the Ekahau Real Time Location System (RTLS) solution to UHC member hospitals.

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Sanjay Chatterjee, Mind Commerce: This unique report addresses core technology and business aspects of real-time location services (RTLS) and guides the reader through the most important aspects of enabling technologies including RFID. It covers the critical factors and gives the user the views about the different kinds of RFIDs. The report also addresses the advantages and the bottlenecks for deployment of RTLS applications, evaluating available solutions and the methodologies. The report includes an exhaustive study of leading RTLS companies. Different types of RTLS are evaluated and the standards and protocols related to them. The report has a great focus on the applications and the key areas that can be addressed by RTLS giving special attention to Vehicle Tracking, Port/Yard Management, Inventory Management and Real Time Tracking solutions. The report also provides an analysis of the most widely used RTLS applications today and provides a vision for anticipated future applications.

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Aerohive.com: Ekahau Inc., a leading provider of Wi-Fi-based real-time location systems (RTLS), and Aerohive Networks, creators of the controller-less "cooperative control" wireless LAN (WLAN) architecture, today announced that Ekahau has certified Aerohive's wireless LAN equipment to work with Ekahau's RTLS products. This certification provides customers with the assurance that Ekahau RTLS may be quickly and easily deployed on Aerohive wireless LANs and that the wide range of Aerohive's advanced capabilities, such as mesh networking, work with Ekahau technology.

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PRNewsWire: HELSINKI, October 23 /PRNewswire/ --- Analysis of Consumer Shopping Patterns Enable Home Improvement Retailer to Optimize Store Layout and Increase Marketing ROI Ekahau Inc., a leading provider of Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), announced that Rautakesko Ltd, a market leader in its operating area and the fifth biggest in do-it-yourself (DIY) business in Europe, has selected Ekahau Wi-Fi-based RTLS solution for retail store customer behavior analysis.

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