Patent ID: 8126481

Claim:
A system, comprising: an access point (AP), wherein, in operation: the AP transmits a frame; stores a time of beginning of transmission, t 0 ; if an acknowledgement frame is received the AP stores a time of completion of receiving, t 1 ; and if the acknowledgement frame is not received after one or more frame transmissions, the AP denies future requests for access to a network from the station and sends an instruction to a network management module (NMM) to broadcast an address of the station to other APs in the network to allow the other APs to deny the station access; and the NMM, coupled to the AP, including: memory having a value, t fixed , stored therein, representing a known frame exchange component period of time, and a value, c, representing the speed of light; a distance calculation engine, in operation, the distance calculation engine determining a distance, d, using a formula d=[(t 1 −t 0 −t fixed )/2]·c, d representing an estimated distance of the AP from the station; and a graphical display engine, wherein, in operation, the graphical display engine displays one or more predicted locations the distance, d, from the AP in a graphically rendered environment.