Patent ID: 7242950

Claim:
A system comprising: a history database to track a sequence of wireless network access points (NAPs) accessed by a wireless device in a session, the NAPs part of a plurality of NAPs each having a known location and a unique identifier, the plurality of NAPs comprising a plurality of shorter-range NAPs and a plurality of longer-range NAPs, each NAP comprising an associated precedence; and a location determination component to determine which of at least two NAPs that receive a request for information from the wireless device has a greatest precedence and to assign same as a current NAP, to determine whether the current NAP is a NAP of the plurality of shorter-range NAPs or the plurality of longer-range NAPs, to determine whether a previously-current NAP for the wireless device from the history database is within the range of the current NAP, and to estimate a current location of the wireless device based on the known location of the current NAP and the known location of the previously-current NAP for the wireless device from the history database; wherein the estimate of the current location is biased towards the previously-current NAP when the current NAP is one of the plurality of longer-range NAPs and the previously-current NAP is located outside the range of the current NAP; and wherein the estimate of the current location is within the range of the current NAP and not within the range of the previously-current NAP when the current NAP is one of the plurality of longer-range NAPs and the previously-current NAP is located within the range of the current NAP.