Patent ID: 8099104

Claim:
A method for determining a physical location of a wireless local area network (WLAN) client, said method comprising: receiving at a location services module associated with a WLAN network a location request originating from a core network, said location request requesting said physical location of said WLAN client; communicating by said location services module with one or more network elements within said WLAN network to ascertain location based information; determining said physical location of said WLAN client based on said location based information received from the WLAN client; forwarding by said location services module said determined physical location of said WLAN client back to said core network; wherein said communicating comprises determining by said location services module one or more access points within said WLAN network from which said WLAN client is receiving signals; and wherein the determining said physical location comprises determining a physical location of individual of said one or more determined access points, and using said physical locations of said one or more determined access points as a basis for determining said physical location of said WLAN client; and wherein said determining physical locations for individual of said one or more determined access points comprises accessing by said location services module a database, said database maintaining physical locations for at least a plurality of access points in said WLAN network.