Patent ID: 7095983
Filing Date: 2006-08-22
Classification: H04W

Abstract:
1. A method for determining mobile communications system carrier propagation characteristics, the method comprising: receiving at a location a carrier signal from a transmitter of the mobile communications system, the mobile communications system operating in a standard operational mode, the carrier signal corresponding to a call handled by a cell without the cell keying up a test carrier frequency; determining a strength indicator of the received carrier signal; identifying the source of the received carrier signal; determining a location identifier of the location; determining a time of receiving the received carrier signal; and storing a carrier signal identifier corresponding to the received carrier signal, the signal strength indicator, a source identifier corresponding to the identified source of the received carrier signal, and the location identifier wherein the mobile communications system does not decrease system capacity during the operation of said method for determining mobile communications system carrier propagation characteristics; wherein identifying the source of the received carrier includes decoding a Short Messaging Service (SMS) message of the received carrier, the SMS message providing a unique identifying code identifying a cell generating the received carrier signal with the unique identifying code.