Patent ID: 8559978

Claim:
A method for estimating a geographic location of a mobile station within a coverage area of a wireless network, comprising: calculating a radial distance of an individual mobile station from a first base station serving the individual mobile station in response to detection of a dropped call for the mobile station, the first base station including multiple sector antennas, the radial distance based at least in part on a round trip measurement preceding detection of the dropped call and in proximate time relation to detection of the dropped call, the round trip measurement associated with elapsed time between sending an outgoing signal from the first base station to the individual mobile station and receiving a corresponding acknowledgement signal from the individual mobile station at the first base station; determining a signal strength report from the individual mobile station provided to the first base station preceding detection of the dropped call, in proximate time relation to detection of the dropped call, and related in calendar time to the round trip measurement includes a first signal strength measurement representative of a power characteristic of a first radio frequency (RF) signal received by the individual mobile station from a first sector antenna of the first base station; and identifying an instant geographic location of the individual mobile station in a coverage area of a wireless network formed by at least the first base station, wherein identification of the instant geographic location is based at least in part on an intersection of a circle having a center defined by the first base station and a radius defined by the radial distance with a first sub-sector geographic area in a first RF coverage map for the first sector antenna, the first RF coverage map including a first reference location for the first base station to facilitate correlation of the circle to the first RF coverage map, the first RF coverage map formed by a plurality of sub-sector geographic areas, the first RF coverage map populated with representative RF coverage levels associated with previous signal strength measurements for the first sector antenna from one or more mobile stations in previous signal strength reports, wherein the first sub-sector geographic area in the first RF coverage map is populated with an RF coverage level representative of a first signal strength value within a first predetermined threshold of the first signal strength measurement.