Patent ID: 8611324

Claim:
A method, comprising: determining, with a communication device, respective distances between the communication device and a plurality of wireless local area network (WLAN) access points, wherein determining the respective distances is based on position information corresponding to the plurality of WLAN access points and position information corresponding to the communication device; determining, with the communication device, a first WLAN access point, different from a second WLAN access point with which the communication device is currently associated, that is closest to the communication device, wherein the first WLAN access point is determined from the plurality of WLAN access points based on the determined respective distances; determining, with the communication device, whether a first distance between (i) the communication device and (ii) the second WLAN access point is greater than a second distance between (i) the communication device and (ii) the first WLAN access point; when it is determined that the first distance is greater than the second distance, initiating, with the communication device, a background scanning process that includes selecting, with the communication device, one of the plurality of WLAN access points with which the communication device is to associate based on the determined respective distances, including evaluating the plurality of WLAN access points in an order, wherein the order is based on the determined respective distances, wherein evaluating each WLAN access point includes determining if the WLAN access point is acceptable, and stopping evaluating the plurality of WLAN access points before all of the plurality of WLAN access points have been evaluated if an acceptable WLAN access point is determined.