Ekahau Refines Wi-Fi RTLS Performance With New Location Beacon

RESTON, Virginia - Ekahau’s Patented Wi-Fi Methodologies Now Exceed Performance Criteria
Traditionally Only Available With Expensive Proprietary Technologies

(Logo: www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081014/324879-a )

Ekahau Inc., the leading provider of Wi-Fi-based Real Time
Location Systems (RTLS), announced that it will make available a family of a
small mobile battery-powered transmitters, called Ekahau location beacons, to
further increase the location accuracy of its award-winning Wi-Fi RTLS
solution. These beacons are designed to enhance system performance in areas
that have poor Wi-Fi coverage but where location accuracy is mission
critical. Ekahau will be demonstrating its location beacon capabilities
during the HIMSS 2009 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago, April 4-8,
2009 (Booth 4820).

Ekahau is the recognized performance leader in the RTLS market
with location algorithms that are capable of pinpointing tagged objects using
existing enterprise-grade Wi-Fi networks. But in areas where there is
marginal or poor wireless coverage, Ekahau location beacons can help improve
location accuracy to levels previously available with expensive, proprietary
systems not based on standard Wi-Fi technology. For a typical hospital
environment, Ekahau location beacons can guarantee bed- and room-level
accuracy in areas with poor Wi-Fi coverage, without the need to install
additional Wi-Fi access points.

With deployment of these location beacons, the Ekahau RTLS can
support a variety of different location tracking requirements, such as:

- Campuswide tracking using Ekahau’s standard RTLS capabilities over the
customer’s existing Wi-Fi network with the Wi-Fi industry’s best
accuracy.

- Room-level location using an enterprise-grade Wi-Fi network or using
Ekahau location beacons in areas of poor Wi-Fi coverage.

- Bed- or bay-level accuracy, such as in hospital emergency rooms or
recovery rooms in operating suites where many beds may be only
separated by curtains. In these scenarios the system leverages both the
customer’s Wi-Fi network and Ekahau location beacons.

Ekahau Wi-Fi tags recognize these location beacon signals and
transmit the signal data to the RTLS server, which calculates the precise
location of the Ekahau tags. The location beacons are typically mounted on a
wall. Because they do not require any cabling, the location beacons can be
moved around as needed to improve accuracy for a period of time or installed
permanently in specific locations.

“Based on evaluations of several systems on the market, we
chose to work with Ekahau because its high performance Wi-Fi RTLS system was
incredibly easy to install and operate,” said Gerhard Kschwendt, senior
director for ISM Siemens Medical Solutions, USA. “Ekahau has done it right
again. As other systems keep adding more proprietary infrastructure to their
offerings, Ekahau has stayed true to its vision of providing high-performance
solutions over standard Wi-Fi networks.”

Competing enterprise-class location tracking systems include
ones using ultra-wideband, active RFID, ultrasound, ZigBee and other RF-based
systems. These alternatives require installation of proprietary and
single-purpose antennas, and dedicated staff to deploy, manage and maintain.
Some of these technologies such as ZigBee and active RFID, are problematic in
certain scenarios because they can introduce possible interference with Wi-Fi
networks and critical patient care equipment. For example, 125 kHz
chokepoints have been banned by many hospitals around the world because they
can interfere with clinical equipment in hospitals and ZigBee (or IEEE
802.15.4) can seriously impact a customer’s existing Wi-Fi network that is
used for primary voice and data communications.

“Wi-Fi RTLS continues to dominate the market,” said Pauli
Misikangas, Ekahau’s CTO. “Our innovative technological advances continue to
strengthen our performance leadership, giving our customers accuracy levels
that beat most proprietary systems and providing 100 percent service coverage
across the enterprise. As the worldwide investment in Wi-Fi technology
increases, we are able to leverage industrywide economies of scale not
available to users of proprietary systems.”

The Ekahau RTLS solution is designed to work over any
generation or brand of Wi-Fi network. It is supported and endorsed by all
major Wi-Fi vendors and has been certified with approximately 30 of the
leading Wi-Fi network and device companies worldwide. In a study published in
IEEE Computer Society’s IT Professional magazine, Berlin Institute of
Technology researchers ranked Ekahau as the best performing Wi-Fi RTLS
solution on the market for the clinical healthcare use.

The location beacons are now available through Ekahau and its
partners worldwide at a price of approximately $50 a piece.

About Ekahau Inc.

Ekahau Inc. is the industry leader in providing Wi-Fi-based
RTLS solutions. Ekahau’s RTLS technology is routinely recognized for its
superior performance in customer benchmarking and competitive evaluations of
Wi-Fi-based location tracking solutions. Ekahau’s customers, including
several Fortune 500 companies worldwide, are realizing the benefits of Wi-Fi
based location services and innovative Wi-Fi network planning and
optimization tools. Ekahau’s solutions are being used in more than 150
hospitals around the world, as well as by manufacturers, mining/oil/gas
companies, government agencies and the military. Ekahau partners include
wireless software developers, leading system integrators and international
OEM partners, who develop and market wireless enterprise applications. Ekahau
is a U.S. based corporation, with offices in Saratoga, Calif.; Reston, Va.;
Helsinki, Finland; and Hong Kong, China. For more information about Ekahau,
please visit at www.ekahau.com.

(c) Copyright 2009, Ekahau, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Source: Ekahau Inc.

U.S. Media Contact: Juliet Travis, Rocket Science PR, for Ekahau, +1-415-464-8110 x 215, juliet at rocketscience.com; Europe Media Contact: Annina Pierson, Marketing Manager, Ekahau, +358-20-743-5910, annina.pierson at ekahau.com