Ekahau today announced that its Ekahau RTLS location tracking solution and Ekahau Site Survey (ESS) Wi-Fi network planning and optimization tools will work seamlessly with the upcoming 802.11n standard.
ABI Research forecasts that 47 percent of all 2008 Wi-Fi chipset shipments will be 802.11n draft 2.0. “802.11n is the next big wave in the enterprise networking market, so it is very important that our solutions will continue working over this new standard,” said Pauli Misikangas, Ekahau’s CTO.
ESS software features graphical visualization of the network’s coverage, enabling enterprises to “see the network” and maximize its performance. The new features ESS will provide to 802.11n users include:
- Signal prediction for off-site network planning
- Verify network coverage and operation
- Single-view network health analysis
- One-click troubleshooting assistance
- Visualization of network characteristics, such as coverage,
interference and data rate - Generating reports
- Using site survey data to enable an easy Ekahau RTLS deployment.
Ekahau says their Site Survey software is the only survey tool on the market that enables RTLS deployment after the standard Wi-Fi site survey, by creating an RTLS positioning model from the survey data. Any Wi-Fi network analyzed with ESS is ready for tracking assets and people with Wi-Fi tags and RTLS software.
Ekahau also offers Wi-Fi tags and badges for asset tracking.
Similar to other tracking solutions, accuracy of the Ekahau RTLS system depends largely on the network. For best results, tracked devices (tags and soft clients) should be able to receive signals from at least three access points. In a typical indoor multi-floor Wi-Fi environment, 3 to 9 feet (1 to 3 meter) accuracy is expected.
Ekahau RTLS 4.X, with its support of 802.11n, is available now. ESS 4.5., which will include the 802.11n support, will ship during the third quarter of 2008.
