At-A-Glance

What Is a Location Solution?

A location solution is a wireless solution that enables companies to track and
monitor the condition of mobile assets across their facility in order to optimize
their business processes.
Deploying a location solution brings visibility to critical applications, such as high-value asset
tracking, IT management, location-based security, and business policy enforcement based
on temperature, humidity, or other factors. With location services, an organization can track
the physical location of a variety of mobile devices to within a few meters (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Accurately Pinpoint a Wi-Fi Devices Location
How Can a Location Solution Help Me?
Business processes are unique to companies, and they become more and more a
crucial competitive advantage as the pace of the business accelerates. To monitor and
optimize these processes, organizations must choose between wireless technologies
that often do not interoperate. Using the Wi-Fi technology for location services reduces
the implementation time and allows the business to use the same network for multiple
purposes. In addition, location solutions can be used to enhance WLAN security, control,
and performance. Organizations are deploying location services to address the following
business requirements:
Maximizing the utilization of valuable shared mobile assets
Workflow automation, inventory management, and device or people tracking
Telemetry to relay temperature, pressure, or humidity information about a
devices environment directly to business applications
Rapid location of security threats, such as rogue access points and rogue
client devices
Voice over WLAN (VoWLAN) for Enhanced 911 (E911) applications to identify
the location of a distressed caller
Cisco Location Solution
Customers with a Cisco

Unified Wireless Network configured to support a location

solution need add only the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance to start locating Wi-Fi
devices like laptops or phones. Wi-Fi tags can be added on mobile assets.
When applications require it, chokepoints can be deployed (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Cisco Location Solution

Cisco Location Solution: Real-Time Visibility

Cisco Wireless
Control System (WCS)
Cisco Wireless
Location Appliance
Wi-Fi Devices
Tags
Cisco Wireless
LAN Controller
Cisco Aironet
Access Point
Chokepoint
125 kHz
At-A-Glance
Cisco Location Solution: Real-Time Visibility
Copyright 2007 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco, Cisco IOS, Cisco Systems, and the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. C45-408202-00 5/07
Chokepoint System
For some applications, another frequency can be used with chokepoint technology.
The chokepoint system consists of multiple-frequency tags (Wi-Fi 2.4-GHz and a lower
frequency) and chokepoints transmitting at the lower frequency. In a chokepoint system:
Location and telemetry information are updated on a per-event basis.
Location is deterministic and limited to certain zones; the predefined
set of possible locations is equal to the set of the chokepoints locations.
High accuracy from a few inches up to 2 feet or 60 centimeters, depending
on the chokepoint vendor.
What Are the Benefits of Location Solutions?
Location solutions are deployable in a variety of environments and situations across
multiple industries, including healthcare, finance, retail, manufacturing, and federal
organizations.
They can also be used for enhanced network visibility, Wi-Fi device tracking, workflow
automation, inventory management, advanced WLAN security, network control, RF capacity
management, telemetry, and VoWLAN services.
Location solutions deliver tangible benefits to enterprises running business-critical
wireless LANs, including:
Location-based alerts that can be proactively sent based on device
movement, device absence, and zone entry and exit of tracked devices
Scalability and flexibility to track thousands of wireless clients and Wi-Fi tags
Monitoring of telemetry conditions along with location information
Lowed total cost of ownership and simple and fast implementation
reusing the existing wireless LAN infrastructure
Centralized quick and easy browsing of all devices across different
geographies, campuses, buildings, floors, and areas

Why Cisco?
In addition to the many benefits just described, the Cisco Location Solution includes a rich
and open API on the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance that integrates with a spectrum
of technology and application partners. This integration supports the deployment of
powerful location-based applications, such as E911 services, asset management,
and workflow automation.
Many Cisco partners offer specialized location services that integrate with the API
of the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance, including PanGo, AeroScout, WhereNet,
Appear Networks, and G2 Networking.
The Cisco Compatible Extensions program for Wi-Fi tags allow customers to chose
the right tags for the right applications from any of the Cisco Compatible Extensions
vendors. Cisco Compatible Extensions tags ensure that the information sent by the tag
is captured by the WLAN and that it can be used by any application interfacing the Cisco
Wireless Location Appliance. Working Cisco Compatible Extensions vendors helps to
ensure that you benefit from the latest innovations with the same wireless infrastructure.
To learn more, visit: http://www.cisco.com/go/location