Patent ID: 8190175

Claim:
In a telecommunication network, a method of reducing a total number of requests and messages associated with determining a group of user terminals, which are closest to a point of interest, the method comprising: a) determining, from cells of the network, a set of cells to be searched, wherein each cell in the set of cells has an associated distance range to the point of interest, the distance range having a minimum and maximum value; b) setting a search range with an upper and lower limit; c) searching, in the set of cells, a current search cell having the lowest distance range minimum value, which is included within the upper and lower limits of the search range d) querying the current search cell for user data and location data associated with user terminals in the current search cell; e) updating a set of found user terminals with the user terminals in the current search cell; f) repeating steps b) through c) for the remaining cells in the set of cells wherein every cell having a distance range minimum lower than the search range upper limit has been searched.