Patent ID: 7142156

Claim:
A system for aiding signal acquisition in a satellite positioning system (SPS) comprising: an SPS receiver, the SPS receiver containing circuitry to receive transmissions from a plurality of SPS satellites and compute, from the received transmissions, its current position and the current SPS Time; a communications processor coupled to the SPS receiver, the communications processor containing circuitry to obtain time information from a communications network wherein the time-of-day information is from a source other than the satellite position system (SPS) and to provide the time information to the SPS receiver, wherein the communications processor comprises: a time server client coupled to the first communications network, the time server client containing circuitry to interface with the time server; a real-time clock coupled to the time server client, the real-time clock to maintain a time as provided by the time server; and a pulse and message generator (PMG) coupled to the real-time clock, the PMG containing circuitry to provide time information taken from the real-time clock to the SPS receiver; a first communications network coupled to the communications processor; and a time server coupled to the first communications network, the time server containing circuitry to maintain accurate time and to response to time queries.