Users operate wireless communication devices to communicate with other devices and access the Internet over wireless communication networks. The wireless communication devices execute software applications that use device locations to provide a myriad of location-based services. A few examples are weather applications, social applications, search applications, and the like. The applications use different types of device location data. One type of device location is a highly-accurate Global Position Satellite (GPS) location provided by an internal GPS receiver. Another type of device location is the moderately-accurate network triangulation location that is based on wireless signal strength and/or delay between the wireless communication device and multiple network base stations. A third type of device location is the low-accuracy base-station location that is based on the centroid of the cell sector occupied by the wireless communication device.
There are currently millions of wireless communication devices executing millions of applications. A multitude of new devices and applications are being developed as well. Many of these devices and applications will use device locations that consume device and network resources. The accuracy of these device locations may not fit the user's purpose for the application and may result in a waste of resources. For example, a weather application may not require GPS accuracy, and the user may not desire the extra battery drain. The accuracy of device locations may also raise privacy concerns. Unfortunately, it is difficult to assess the geographic accuracy of the device locations used by the applications in wireless communication devices.
Technical Overview
A data processing system determines the geographic accuracy of device locations used by applications executed by wireless communication devices. The system processes communication data for the wireless communication devices to individually correlate the device locations with the applications that used the device locations and with the wireless communication devices that executed the applications. The system processes the device locations for pairs of the wireless communication devices and the applications to determine geographic accuracy data for the pairs. The system aggregates the geographic accuracy data for individual ones of the applications to generate geographic accuracy metrics for the individual applications.