Patent ID: 8526368

Claim:
A method of retrieving an operating characteristic of a selected wireless access point having a unique media access control (MAC) address, the method comprising: sending a request signal from a mobile communication device to the selected access point; transmitting a response signal from the selected access point to the mobile communication device in response to the request signal, wherein the response signal includes the MAC address of the selected access point; sending the MAC address as a look-up value to an access point characteristics database having a plurality of entries, wherein each entry comprises a characteristic value associated with a number of access points of the same make-and-model, and wherein each entry in the characteristics database comprises a range of MAC addresses corresponding to a group of access points estimated to have the same characteristic value; and retrieving the characteristic value of the selected access point from the characteristics database in response to the MAC address, wherein the characteristic value comprises a processing delay time indicating a time delay between the selected access point receiving the request signal and the same selected access point transmitting the response signal.