Patent ID: 7289815

Claim:
An apparatus comprising means for determining the geolocation of a wireless communication device within a wireless network, the means for determining comprising: at least two transponder units with a reduced medium access control stack unit being reduced to comprise allowing only acknowledgment of unicast data frames addressed to a particular one of said transponder units to provide location-sensing information, and for communicating with the communication device when the communication device is situated in a coverage area of the wireless network; and a processing unit for deriving the geolocation of the communication device within the coverage area in dependence on information received from the transponder units, wherein one transponder unit comprises a reduced a-type medium access (a-type MAC) stack unit implemented with one of a microprocessor and a field programmable gate array, said a-type medium access (a-type MAC) stack unit to filter incoming data frames for error-free reception and correct MAC address, and to pass an acknowledgment frame after a short interframe space to a physical-layer (PHY-layer) for transmission.