The growth of WLANs and hence, the increase of mobile data terminals, bring about a visible proliferation of location-based services. This scenario also carries the need for location management systems that are device independent. In this paper, after an overview of several different solutions, we present a location discovery system for WLANs 802.11, based on SNMP traps. As a result of our work, two location aware applications have been implemented. One of these applications is a web service for location discovery that can be used to suggest the nearest points of interest (noteworthy tourist spots, shops, libraries, etc.). The other is a centralized application proposed for WLAN administrators to localize mobile users on their current position or to track those users on the past. The bulk of location-based services don’t have the need of a big granularity, therefore our solution simply identifies to which AP a mobile user is currently connected to.

Peer Reviewed