Patent ID: 8594663

Claim:
A method performed by an access terminal, comprising: receiving a signal from an access point to a radio area network, the signal comprising a first identifier; determining whether the first identifier corresponds to a second identifier in a white list in memory of the access terminal, the white list identifying one or more access points that the access terminal is authorized to use, the second identifier comprising wildcard data, the first identifier being determined to correspond to the second identifier if data in the first identifier matches data at corresponding positions in the second identifier excluding the wildcard data; determining whether the first identifier corresponds to a third identifier in a black list in memory of the access terminal, the black list identifying one or more access points that the access terminal is not authorized to use, the first identifier being determined to correspond to the third identifier if data in the first identifier matches data at corresponding positions in the third identifier; and determining whether to communicate with the radio area network through the access point based on whether the first identifier corresponds to the second identifier and based on whether the first identifier corresponds to the third identifier.