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 wireless communications device, comprising:
means for creating a signal attribute pattern for a first communications network by capturing a value of at least one attribute of at least one reference signal transmitted by a second communications network when the wireless communications device is in the vicinity of the first communications network; means for storing the signal attribute pattern; and means for determining whether the wireless communications device is currently in the vicinity of the first communications network by comparing a current value of the at least one attribute from one or more reference signals received from the second communications network to the value of the at least one attribute in the stored signal attribute pattern.