Sniffing out wireless networks within a facility has, in its short history, required somebody to carry a laptop throughout the place, taking readings and analyzing data. It's expensive and prone to errors.

Helium Networks, a Pittsburgh-based company, addresses the challenge with SiteScout, a network analyzer on wheels. Used by IT professionals in large institutions such as hospitals, SiteScout combines several innovative technologies to locate and identify networks within a facility.

Wheeling around this laptop on a frame is like wheeling a cart through the grocery store. Instead of collecting your groceries, though, SiteScout has a radio receiver to find wireless networks that may be within reach.

It uses a GPS, or global positioning system (like the navigation systems in your car), to figure out where it is when it finds the network; and it uses advanced software to collect the data into a form that can be used by IT managers to figure out where their hot spots are really hot, and where they're not -- so they can fill in the gaps by rearranging or adding equipment.

Companies that are concerned with network security also can use SiteScout to find rogue transmitters -- those that are within the network and those that penetrate the walls from the outside.

Once it is wheeled through a facility, SiteScout can generate a map of the facility, which after processing becomes a color-coded display of how strong various signals are. A simple click will show which signals were available at which point in the path, allowing users to add new wireless hubs to fill in the dead zones or isolate wireless devices that need to be removed from a network. In facilities with more than one tenant, it also will show whenever another tenant's wireless network is overlapping with yours.

SiteScout is available directly from Helium Networks (www.heliumnetworks.com).