Patent ID: 7941161

Claim:
An apparatus for scheduling servicing of location requests by a position determining entity (PDE) and for providing triggers for firing alerts in a communications network adapted to provide alert based services for a plurality of mobile stations, the apparatus comprising: a) an input for receiving expiry times data indicative of a plurality of expiry times relating to respective location requests, the expiry times comprising at least one expected earliest future time at which at least one alert condition is capable of being met by a particular mobile station; b) a scheduler for processing the expiry times data for determining an order for servicing the location requests by the PDE at least in part based on the expiry times of the location requests and a requirement to schedule a request to obtain updated location data about the particular mobile station in advance of the at least one expected earliest future time; c) an output for interfacing with the PDE allowing the PDE to service the location requests according to the order determined by said scheduler; and d) at least one engine for determining, on the basis of updated location data from the PDE about the particular mobile station, for which alert-based services, if any, at least one corresponding alert condition is met, and for generating a trigger to fire an alert associated with each alert-based service for which at least one corresponding alert condition has been met by the particular mobile station.