Sprint Spectrum L.p.

Jiongkuan Hou

James C Swift

Tong Zhou

Kenneth Wayne Samson

David Mohan

Methods of determining and providing location information as to the whereabouts of a wireless device are disclosed which have less geographical precision that those based on GPS or triangulation algorithms, but which are much more scalable, efficient and less costly. The methods make use of SMS paging and in particular obtain cell and cell sector information from a wireless device from a response message to an SMS page to the device. The cell and cell sector is converted to user-friendly geographical information such as an address or name of a building using a database correlating cell sectors to landmarks, location or addresses, and this user-friendly information is returned to the requestor.

Highly scalable, lower precision idle mode locating method for wireless devices

A method and system for conferencing a landline telephone into a cellular telephone call is disclosed. In response to a landline telephone going off-hook, a cellular telephone corresponding to the landline telephone is identified. When a determination is made that the corresponding cellular telephone is currently engaged in a call, the landline telephone is conferenced into the cellular call. If the cellular telephone is subsequently disengaged from the call, the original cellular call has been effectively transferred to the landline telephone. The inventive method and system may be linked to a cellular-landline conference call service. For example, a user may subscribe to such a service so that the user may automatically transfer a call from the user's cellular telephone to the user's home or office landline telephone when that landline telephone is taken off-hook.

Off-hook triggered cellular-landline conference call

A method and system for determining a location of a wireless communication device (WCD) provisioned to operate in (a) a first access network that defines a first plurality of coverage areas and (b) a second access network that defines a second plurality of coverage areas. A location system may receive a request to determine a location of the WCD. In response, the location system may identify (a) a first coverage area of the first access network in which the WCD is located and (b) a second coverage area of the second access network in which the WCD is located. Thereafter, the location system may determine an overlapping area between the first coverage area and the second coverage area. In turn, the location system may determine an indication of the overlapping area's location, which the location system may define as a low precision indication of the WCD's location.

Method and system of determining a location of a dual-mode device

A base station almanac (BSA) stores directional forward link calibration (FLC) values that correct for differences between the listed locations of base station antennas and the actual locations of the antennas. Each directional FLC value is specific to wireless signals that are transmitted from a particular base station antenna and propagate toward a particular receiving area. A mobile station operating in a receiving area measures a wireless signal from a base station antenna located outside of the receiving area to obtain a signal measurement. The location of the mobile station is determined by applying a positioning algorithm that uses the signal measurement corrected by the directional FLC value for that particular combination of base station antenna and receiving area.

Method and system for determining locations of mobile stations using directional corrections

A base station almanac (BSA) includes entries for a plurality of repeaters. An entry for a repeater includes location-determination parameters associated with that repeater, such as (i) a repeater forward link calibration (FLC) value that correct for transmission delay associated with the repeater and (ii) a center point of the repeater's coverage area. A measured power level and a measured phase of a wireless signal transmitted by a base transceiver station (BTS) and received by the mobile station are obtained. An expected received power level is calculated based on the measured phase and the transmit power level of the BTS. If the measured power level exceeds the expected received power level by at least a predetermined amount, then it is determined that the mobile station received the wireless signal via a repeater and one or more location-determination parameters associated with the repeater are used to determine the mobile station's location.

Method and system for using a wireless signal received via a repeater for location determination

A method for monitoring performance of a message-delivery system, such as an SMS delivery system for instance. According to the method described, key performance metrics will be collected from one or more message-routers and will be monitored over time to determine when a threshold problem condition occurs with the message-delivery system. In response to detecting a threshold problem condition such as (i) a threshold measure of difference in router-input and router-output, (ii) a threshold measure of change in message-queue length, and/or (iii) a threshold measure of message delivery attempts per message, an alert will then be generated, in order to inform network administrators or systems of a potential issue and to allow prompt remedial action to be taken.

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Olathe, KS, United States of America

Jiongkuan Hou