Diagnostics and self-healing in a wireless communications device based on peer-to-peer signaling and emulation

A method of responding to a signaling problem at a communication device, the method comprising the steps of:

• identifying a peer of the communication device if a first signal quality measurement of a wide-area signal received at the communication device is less than a predetermined threshold;
• receiving at the communication device a second signal quality measurement, the second signal quality measurement based upon a wide-area signal received at the peer;
• establishing a peer-to-peer connection between the communication device and the peer if the first signal quality measurement differs from the second signal quality measurement by a predetermined amount;
• generating a third signal quality measurement based upon at least one short-range signal transmission carried over the peer-to-peer connection while at least one of the communication device and the peer emulates a wide-area communication network infrastructure;
• and
• determining whether or not the source of the signaling problem is a fault in the communication device, the determination being based upon a comparison of the first and third signal quality measurements.