Patent ID: 7590418

Claim:
A wireless location server operative to communicate with one or more elements of a wireless network infrastructure, the wireless location server comprising: one or more processors; a memory; a network interface; and a location application, physically stored in the memory, comprising instructions operable to cause the one or more processors to: collect network data generated throughout the wireless network infrastructure; identify one or more mobile nodes from the network data; store the network data in association with the one or more mobile nodes in a database; track a present location of each of the one or more mobile nodes by periodically: identifying a location of a wireless access point with which the mobile node is presently associated; computing the present location of the mobile node based on a received signal strength value and the location of the wireless access point with which the mobile node is presently associated; and storing the present location in the database in association with the mobile node; determine an analysis area; determine the one or more mobile nodes in the analysis area during a time period; and compute a load in the analysis area for the time period based on network traffic generated by the one or more mobile nodes in the analysis area during the time period.