Patent ID: 8676118

Claim:
A method of providing a multimodal list of transceiver devices from a base station to a remote terminal, the method comprising: retrieving, at the base station, a geographic location of the remote terminal, wherein: the remote terminal is able to communicate with a plurality of transceiver devices, and the remote terminal communicates in at least two communication modes; determining communication mode capabilities of the remote terminal in accordance with identifying information, received at the base station from the remote terminal, that identifies communication mode capabilities of the remote terminal; identifying a first transceiver device for communicating in a first communication mode and a second transceiver device for communicating in a second communication mode, wherein: the first and second transceiver devices are located within communication range of the remote terminal for the geographic location of the remote terminal when the remote terminal is configured in a corresponding communication mode, and the first and second communication modes are different; generating, based in part on the identified communication mode capabilities and the geographic location of the remote terminal, the multimodal list of transceiver devices comprising the first and second transceiver devices, the multimodal list of transceiver devices containing a transceiver identifier, a transceiver location, and a communication mode for each of the first and second transceiver devices, the multimodal list being a prioritized list of the first and second transceiver devices, wherein generating the multimodal list includes identifying a plurality of transceiver devices determined to be within communication ranges, of the remote terminal, corresponding to the plurality of transceiver devices' respective communication modes, and excluding from the multimodal list excluded transceiver devices unable of communicating with the remote terminal in at least one communication mode of the remote terminal; and transmitting the multimodal list of transceiver devices from the base station to the remote terminal in a base station communication mode matching one of the at least two communication modes of the remote terminal, wherein the base station communication mode on which the multimodal list is transmitted is determined by a process of initially sending, by the remote terminal to the base station, a request for the multimodal list using different ones of the at least two communication modes until an acknowledgement is received from the base station in response to the base station receiving the request for the multimodal list transmitted from the remote terminal in the base station communication mode.