Patent ID: 8909245

Claim:
In a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) positioning system for estimating the position of a WLAN-enabled device, a method of estimating an expected error of a position estimate of the WLAN-enabled device, the method comprising: receiving an identity of a plurality of WLAN access points in range of the WLAN-enabled device, the plurality of WLAN access points each having an estimated geographic location; and estimating an expected error, in terms of distance, of a position estimate of the WLAN-enabled device that would result from using the estimated geographic locations of the plurality of WLAN access points in a position estimation determination, based on a spatial spread of WLAN access points in range of the WLAN enabled device, wherein the spatial spread is a measure of distances between the estimated geographic locations of the plurality of WLAN access points in range of the WLAN enabled device, and the expected error of the position estimate predicts a relative accuracy of the position estimate.