The present invention is a more accurate system for estimating the location
of a mobile-telephone without significantly increasing the interference
level for other mobile-telephones in the same or neighboring cells. In one
embodiment, the present invention uses a plurality of location terminals
deployed throughout a cell to increase the chances of detecting
line-of-sight signals and the signal-to-noise ratio at the location
terminals. In this embodiment, a wireless communication network transmits
receive information to the plurality of location terminals instructing
each of the location terminals to receive a signal from a particular
mobile-telephone. Specifically, the location terminal is instructed to
monitor a specific communication channel during a specific time interval.
Upon receiving the signal, each of the location terminals produces
detection information that is used by a location processor to estimate a
location for the mobile-telephone, wherein the detection information
includes times-of-arrival of the signal at each of the location terminals.
In one embodiment, the location processor uses well-known location
techniques, such as time difference of arrival, ranging, etc., to estimate
the location for the mobile-telephone.