Is it possible to add GPS coordinates in my WiFi router so that it would be able to report coordinates to its users by some (unknown to me) protocol?
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Why would router ever report its coordinates to users?– gronostajDec 25, 2013 at 21:40
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I don't know. Why not? My router reports many things to users, for example, DNS names, DHCP addresses, NTP time and so on. Why not GPS coordinates?– DimsDec 25, 2013 at 21:41
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Because both DHCP and DNS are necessary for automatic network configuration. Without them you'd have to manually set DNS and configure static IP in router's subnet every time you switch to another network. They provide essential network features. GPS coordinates aren't an essential feature, it's not even loosely network-related.– gronostajDec 25, 2013 at 21:49
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That's philosophy I can do too. I need actual information, about which protocols exist (if any) to provide GPS coordinates for WiFi AP users.– DimsDec 25, 2013 at 21:50
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3(1) By design, WiFi is short-range. What would be the advantage of providing the specific location of the AP in use? Keep in mind that any such feature takes money and time to design, implement, document and test. All features start out at -100 points at Microsoft, and the same concept applies everywhere. (2) In order for "is it possible to do X using my Y?" to be answerable, you must at a minimum specify the X you want to do (done) and the Y you are talking about (which we do not have).– userDec 25, 2013 at 21:56
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1 Answer
As others have noted, serving GPS coordinates (or other arbitrary data) is not typically a function of a wireless router. As such, I think you'll be hard-pressed to find any protocols designed to serve this feature.
On the other hand, your router is just running an embedded webserver, and a webserver can be configured to serve anything you want. If you really wanted your router to serve this information, I'd look at installing alternate firmware (for example, take a look at dd-wrt), in particular the embedded web server: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/WEB_server. Then your client could use any HTTP client (a browser, or curl, or whatever) to retrieve a simple page that returned whatever you wanted it to.
One final note: if I was setting this up, I wouldn't bother with changing the router config and OS. I'd open a port forward to one of the servers inside the LAN and have it return the page.
