How to use your WLAN to track high-dollar assets and ensure tight security.
Its the ultimate answer to the needle-in-a-haystack problem: Using your wireless LAN to enable asset tracking of expensive equipment, monitor locations of patients or personnel, facilitate stock replenishment, even pinpoint a container within a huge warehouse. Wi-Fi location services can also boost security by tailoring access based on a user's location within your facility. Talk about wringing additional value out of a major investment.
Wi-Fi location services have similarities to GPS and radio frequency identification technologies but have thus far lagged in popularity. In 2006, just 135,000 Wi-Fi location tags shipped, according to a May 2007 In-Stat report.
Why the slow uptake? They're expensive, and at an average of $60 a pop, no one is tossing Wi-Fi tags on $200 smartphones. Battery life can also be an issue. However, that report goes on to predict a 100% growth rate per year, as vendors refine their offerings and prices drop. Here's a prime opportunity for forward-thinking IT groups to get in on the ground floor of a technology that can pay off big in security and competitive advantage.
