Ekahau, a provider of WiFi (News - Alert)-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), announced that its RTLS customers can extend location tracking capabilities to areas outside their defined wireless local area network (WLAN) on their iPhone (News - Alert) or Android phones.

Ekahau RTLS users can leverage smart phones as an additional wireless access point and this new functionality assists Ekahau (News - Alert) RTLS users to track assets during transport or between WiFi enabled facilities.

“Many of our customers with multi-site or mobile operations have been asking for an inexpensive way to set up a 'hotspot' to extend RTLS presence outside of their WLAN coverage area for managing inventory and accounting for personnel,” said Tuomo Rutanen, senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing and Business Development, Ekahau, in a statement.

“With our latest innovation, a WiFi-enabled iPhone or Android (News - Alert) smart phone now can serve as an extension of a WiFi network's RTLS capability, giving users real-time location and status of critical staff and assets anywhere in the world,” Rutanen added.

Ekahau RTLS users can use the tethering feature to transform the iPhone or Android phones into a portable WiFi access point. Once the feature of their smart phone is activated, any Ekahau WiFi tags can communicate their presence back to the Ekahau RTLS Controller location-tracking engine, which can be installed on a server anywhere in the world as a cloud-based RTLS.

Several Fortune 500 companies worldwide are realizing the benefits of WiFi-based location services and innovative WiFi network planning and optimization tools. More than 300 hospitals around the world, as well as by manufacturing, retail and industrial companies, government agencies and the military are using Ekahau's solutions.

Recently, Ekahau announced the release of two new products, Ekahau Site Survey (ESS) version 5.5 and Ekahau DBx Pro Spectrum (News - Alert) Analyzer. These new products assist network administrators to deploy and troubleshoot high-capacity WiFi networks. The new WiFi capacity tools enable operators to plan networks for multiplying tablets and smartphones.