A system and method for determining a round trip delay (RTD) indicator for mobile telephone signals originating from a mobile unit and received at a plurality of base stations in a wireless telecommunications system comprising at least some base stations using rake receivers, each rake receiver comprising a plurality of fingers. The method includes the steps of: collecting one or more finger characteristics from one or more rake receiver fingers assigned to one or more multi-path components of a signal; determining a finger lock category for at least one of the assigned one or more rake receiver fingers using the collected one or more finger characteristics; selecting a rake receiver finger from the one ore more rake receiver fingers using the determined finger lock categories, wherein the selected rake receiver finger has an associated RTD; and recording the RTD indicator corresponding to the selected finger. The system includes a processor configured to perform the foregoing steps.