Wifi and gsm landmarks and neighborhoods for location based services

A system supporting location-based application data delivery to a mobile device, the system comprising:

• a mobile device including:
• wireless hardware that collects visible wireless system identification information for at least two network types;
• a processing capability that forms a location signature from the wireless system identification information for the at least two network types;
• a transceiver for sending a current location signature;
• and
• a user interface for delivering location-oriented information;
• a location service that maps location signature information and matches the current location signature to a location;
• and
• an application service that uses the location to deliver location-oriented information to the mobile device.

A method of operating a location service comprising:

• receiving location signatures generated by a plurality of mobile devices, each location signature including wireless landmark information for at least one cellular telephone site and at least one local network site;
• assigning an edge value to a pair of wireless landmarks received in the same location signature;
• generating a map of wireless landmarks using landmark pairs received in the same location signature and using edge values to determine logical distances between cellular telephone sites and location network sites;
• receiving a first location signature from a mobile device;
• returning a map location including logical distances from a plurality of wireless landmarks for use in accessing location-related information.