Patent ID: 8254985

Claim:
A method in a mobile communication device configured to operate in a wireless wide area network (WWAN) and a wireless local area network (WLAN), the method comprising the acts of: operating for communications via the WLAN with use of a WLAN transceiver portion; performing one or more scanning operations with use of a WWAN transceiver portion for identifying a set of cell site identifications corresponding to a plurality of base stations of one or more WWANs available in a coverage region of the WLAN; storing the set of cell site identifications in association with a WLAN profile which includes an identification of the WLAN; while operating for communications via a WWAN with use of the WWAN transceiver portion: maintaining the WLAN transceiver portion in a low power state; performing one or more scanning operations with use of the WWAN transceiver portion for identifying a current set of cell site identifications, the current set of cell site identifications corresponding to a serving base station of the WWAN and one or more neighboring base stations of the mobile device; comparing cell site identifications of the current set with cell site identifications of the stored set; if the number or percentage of matching cell site identifications of the current and stored sets meets or exceeds a predetermined threshold, then exiting the WLAN transceiver portion from the low power state and enabling operation of the WLAN transceiver portion for identifying the WLAN for communications; and otherwise, if the number or the percentage of the matching cell site identifications of the current and stored sets fails to meet or exceed the predetermined threshold, then maintaining the WLAN transceiver portion in the low power state.