The present invention is directed to a method for determining whether a location associated with a wireless station, such as a cellular telephone, is located within an area of interest. The area of interest is defined using quadtree representation of an area that includes the area of interest and identifying nodes within the quadtree that represent the area of interest. By iterative comparison of the location associated with the wireless station to the locations associated with a node at each level of the quadtree, a determination can be made as to whether or not the location associated with the wireless station is within the area of interest.
In selecting location measurement units for measuring an uplink signal received from a mobile communication station operating in a wireless communication network in order to locate the position of the mobile communication station in the wireless communication network, a possible position of the mobile station in the network is identified. The location measurement units to be used in measuring the uplink signal can then be identified by evaluating one or more of relative positional relationships between the possible position of the mobile station and a plurality of further positions respectively associated with a plurality of location measurement units in the network; path loss measures predicted for each of a plurality of location measurement units relative to the possible position of the mobile station; and geometric dilution of precision (GDOP) values determined for each of a plurality of groups of location measurement units with respect to the possible position of the mobile station.
A wireless phone is provided with a GPS receiver and a system which is utilized to report the local position of the wireless phone either prior or during to the time of a telephone placed wager, in which the geographic coordinates of the phone are transmitted to the sports bet for verification that the wager is being placed within the geographic limits of the wagering authority. In one embodiment spoofing of the system is prevented by having the wireless phone report the time since last fix such that an individual within the wagering authority's jurisdiction cannot remove himself from the jurisdiction with the location having been remembered, with the wager taking entity processing as valid only those geographic coordinates having a time since last fix of, for instance, ten minutes. Anything over this pre-determined limit is determined to be an invalid wager. So accurate is GPS that additional anti-spoofing is provided at the wager taking entity in which authorization is withheld if the location reported is identical to a previously reported location. Further anti-spoofing is provided by the phone transmitting its mobile identification number, with authorization for the wager occurring only for a pre-authorized mobile identification number.
Apparatus and method provide location information for a calling party to a called party and/or provide a location for called party to a calling party. The information may be provided to a customer on a subscription basis or a customer may query for location information for the party at the other end of a call on an ad hoc basis (413). The customer may select the granularity (303) of the location information as well as the format (309) in which the information is sent. A party may optionally disable (403) the location ID feature so that the other person is not able to receive the party's location.
Location information about a communicating entity (41), in particular a mobile entity, is derived by identifying intermediate nodes (42) along the communication path being used by the entity, and then looking up, in a database (44), the geographic significance of at least one of these nodes when considered in a direction along the communication path towards the entity of interest. Preferably, account is taken of any identified downstream/upstream nodes to refine the geographic significance of a node. The geographic significance information can be compiled by taking location fixes at a plurality of endpoint locations and associating the location data thus obtained with the intermediate nodes traversed when communication is effected from the corresponding endpoint locations.
System and method for dynamic delivery of services and applications from a server to mobile computing devices in a wireless proximity framework. This wireless proximity framework allows users of mobile computing devices to dynamically access services and applications available in a given geographic area without preinstalling software for each service or application. Further, the wireless proximity framework allows developers to more quickly and easily adapt existing non-wireless services for use by heterogeneous mobile computing devices. Still further, the wireless proximity framework allows for services and applications to be delivered in a customized manner to each mobile computing device.
