New protocol to identify location of access point users?

Intel has developed a new technology that will more precisely identify where a wireless user is. The previous approach has used signal strength to more than one access point as a guage. This new approach uses a time-stamped packet from two access points. The difference between the packet stamp and the arrival time will give a more precise measure of where the mobile user is.

The Register has an article up about it. It is suggested that this could be pushed into a future 802.11 standard. One of the benefits of this would be restricting access to an access based on the location of the machine, rejecting connections from outside a building for instance.

It looks like this is a GPS alternative that Intel would like to see in all wireless hardware eventually. GPS, of course, does not work well in buildings (satellite signals are easily made much weaker by steal and concrete.) This could be beneficial in those circumstances.

The technology is called Precision Location Technology (PLT) and I'm sure we'll be hearing more about it in the not so distant future.