Patent ID: 8634856

Claim:
A method performed by a server computer, the method comprising: receiving from a central source updates about geographically distributed radio transmitters; responsive to the received updates, generating an associated set of neighbors for each of the geographically distributed radio transmitters, wherein the associated set of neighbors of a radio transmitter includes up to a predetermined number of geographically-closest neighboring radio transmitters of the radio transmitter, wherein each radio transmitter of the associated set of neighbors of the radio transmitter is located up to a predetermined geographical-distance away from the radio transmitter, wherein said generating the associated set of neighbors for each of the geographically distributed radio transmitters comprises: receiving a data-set including geo-spatial coordinates for each of the geographically distributed radio transmitters; grouping the geographically distributed radio transmitters in latitude-bins, wherein each latitude-bin is centered on an associated latitude, has an identical latitude-angle range, and overlaps half of a next latitude-bin to the North and half of a next latitude-bin to the South; and for each radio transmitter from each latitude-bin, generating a set of neighbors of a radio transmitter from a latitude-bin, wherein the radio transmitter is also from another latitude-bin, and each of the generated set of neighbors is from among radio transmitters, located in either of the latitude-bin and the other latitude-bin, that are separated from the radio transmitter by a longitude-distance shorter than the predetermined geographical-distance, wherein the longitude-distance between a first and second radio transmitters is measured, along a line of latitude of the latitude-bin, between a longitude line of the first radio transmitter and a longitude line of the second radio transmitter; and upon request from a mobile device in communication with a given radio transmitter, providing to the mobile device geo-spatial coordinates for each of a generated set of neighbors associated with the given radio transmitter to facilitate location-based services (LBS).