Regulation of airtime for ranging requests

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing computer program code that, when executed by operation of one or more computer processors, performs an operation comprising:

• receiving, at a first network device, a first communication from a first client device;
• determining a predefined minimum distance for the first network device, wherein the predefined minimum distance corresponds to a distance at which a vertical location of the first network device causes time of flight (ToF) ranging techniques to result in inaccurate location estimations;
• estimating a first distance of the first client device from the first network device;
• and
• upon determining that the first distance of the first client device is below the predefined minimum distance, declining ToF ranging requests from the first client device.

A system comprising:

• one or more computer processors;
• and
• a memory containing a program which when executed by the one or more computer processors performs an operation, the operation comprising:
• receiving, at a first network device, a first communication from a first client device;
• determining a predefined minimum distance for the first network device, wherein the predefined minimum distance corresponds to a distance at which a vertical location of the first network device causes time of flight (ToF) ranging techniques to result in inaccurate location estimations;
• estimating a first distance of the first client device from the first network device;
• and
• upon determining that the first distance of the first client device is below the predefined minimum distance, declining ToF ranging requests from the first client device.