Prequalification of potential wireless customers

• US 20080207221A1
• Filed: 02/26/2007
• Published: 08/28/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi Energy Limited (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Tropos Networks Incorporated (ABB Limited)
• Inventors: Chari, Amalavoyal
• Granted Patent: US 7,929,975 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/18 Selecting a network or a communication service

Abstract

An apparatus and method of pre-qualifying a potential customer of a wireless network is disclosed. The prequalification includes obtaining a location input by the potential customer, and accessing a wireless network performance database. An expected level of wireless connection performance of the potential customer is estimated based upon the location input by the potential customer, and wireless network performance stored within the network performance database. The expected level of performance is communicated to the potential customer.

Claims

1. A method of pre-qualifying a potential customer of a wireless network comprising:

obtaining a location input by the potential customer;

accessing a wireless network performance database;

estimating an expected level of wireless connection performance of the potential customer based upon the location input by the potential customer, and wireless network performance stored within the network performance database;

communicating the expected level of performance to the potential customer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the wireless network performance stored within the network performance database is based on characterizations of the wireless network at multiple locations.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising characterizing the wireless network performance, comprising:

characterizing wireless links between a test device and wireless nodes of the wireless network at multiple locations;

storing information of the characterized links within the wireless network performance database.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein characterizing wireless links between a test device and wireless nodes of the wireless network comprises measuring wireless link performance between the test device and wireless access nodes of the wireless network.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein characterizing wireless links between a test device and wireless nodes of the wireless network further comprises storing link measurement locations and wireless access node locations in the wireless network performance database.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein estimating an expected level of wireless connection performance of the potential customer based upon the location input by the potential customer comprises approximating the expected level of wireless connection performance based on a relative proximity of the location of the potential customer to the characterized links at the link measurement locations and the wireless access node locations.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein estimating an expected level of wireless connection performance of the potential customer based upon the location input by the potential customer further comprises analyzing performance data for access nodes proximate to the location input by the potential customer.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the wireless network performance stored within the network performance database is based on performance data of access nodes of the wireless network, and locations of the access nodes of the wireless network.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein performance data for the access nodes comprises at least one of a hop count, an upstream throughput, a downstream throughput, an air-time utilization, a number of downstream nodes, a number of downstream client devices, of each access node.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

estimating the expected level of performance of the potential customer for different equipment configurations of a client device of the potential customer.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the different equipment configurations comprise at least one of a CPE, directional antenna, CPE placement recommendations, CPE transmission channel selection.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising suggesting equipment configurations to an existing client device to improve connectivity of the client device to the wireless network.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising providing a customer of the existing client device with an expected level of performance for various equipment configurations.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the server accepts the location information through a web browser, and the server provides the expected service and network availability information through the web browser.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the network performance data comprises downstream throughput and upstream throughput of the wireless network for various locations.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the network performance data comprises at least one of MAC addresses, IP addresses of access nodes or ESSIDs supported on access nodes that can be accessed at various different locations.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the network performance data comprises access node information and wireless connection quality at various latitudes and longitudes.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein the network performance data comprises latitude and longitude information of access nodes of the wireless network proximate to the location corresponding to the location information.

20. The method of claim 13, wherein the server accepting location information, and

providing expected service and network availability information at a location corresponding with the location information, comprises:

the server accepting a street address;

the server converting the street address to a latitude and longitude;

the server comparing the latitude and longitude to latitude and longitude information of the performance data;

selecting at least portions of the performance data based on the latitude an longitude;

providing the selected portions of performance data corresponding with the location information.

14. A method of providing wireless network service and availability information, comprising:

collecting network performance data at various locations;

storing the performance data at a server;

the server accepting location information; and

providing expected service and network availability information at a location corresponding with the location information.

21. A computer program operable on a server of a wireless mesh network, the program operable to cause the server to execute the following steps:

accepting a street address;

converting the street address to a latitude and longitude;

comparing the latitude and longitude to latitude and longitude information of performance data of a performance database;

selecting at least portions of the performance data based on the latitude an longitude;

providing the selected portions of performance data corresponding with the location information.