Method and apparatus for locating a wireless local area network in a wide area network

摘要

The disclosure is directed to a mobile communication device that measures characteristics or attributes of a first communications network that vary according to physical location within that first communications network to create a fingerprint, or signature, of a location within the first communications network. When the fingerprint of the current location of the mobile device is created it can be compared to a known fingerprint associated with a second communication network to determine the mobile device's proximity to the second communications network. For example, the first communications network may be a CDMA wide area wireless communication network and the second communications network may be a 802.11 wireless LAN.

主权项

1. A method of wireless communications, comprising:
capturing a value of at least one attribute of at least one reference signal transmitted by a wide area network when a wireless communications device is in the vicinity of a wireless local area network of a plurality of wireless local area networks; creating a signal attribute pattern for at least one wireless local area network of the plurality of wireless local area networks based on the captured value of the at least one attribute; and determining whether the wireless communications device is currently in the vicinity of one of the wireless local area networks by comparing a current value of the at least one attribute from one or more reference signals received from the wide area network to the value of the at least one attribute in the signal attribute pattern stored in a memory, wherein the at least one attribute comprises a signal measurement.