Ekahau Inc., a leading provider of Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), has been selected as Nortel’s provider of location tracking solutions. Ekahau’s turn-key Wi-Fi-based RTLS will enable Nortel to offer its customers in industries such as healthcare, education, retail, hospitality and others, a way to easily and cost-effectively deploy location-based applications while maximizing investment in their wireless local area network (WLAN).

"Our customers expect solutions that make Business Made Simple a reality," said Aziz Khadbai, general manager, Converged Data Networks at Nortel. "Ekahau’s RTLS solution coupled with Nortel’s WLAN 2300 series will give customers a fast, dependable locating and tracking solution for such industries as healthcare where time and reliability can literally save a life."

The Ekahau RTLS operates over Nortel’s Wi-Fi infrastructure without the need for any additional proprietary hardware. The comprehensive solution relies on server and application software to track Ekahau tags and other Wi-Fi-enabled devices. Key components of the Ekahau RTLS solution include:

- Ekahau Positioning Engine - server software

- Ekahau Applications - a suite of web-based applications that provide real-time and historical location information, alerts and enables over-the-air configuration of tags;

- Ekahau T-301A Wi-Fi tags - small, tamper-proof two-way tags with up to five years of battery life; and

- Ekahau Client - a software "tag" that enables tracking of personal computers, laptops and other Wi-Fi-enabled handhelds.

"We look forward to working with Nortel to deliver the benefits of real-time location tracking solutions to a wide variety of industries," said Tuomo Rutanen, vice president of business development at Ekahau. "We have a number of excellent installs with Nortel and hope to replicate these successes many times over."