Methods and apparatus for radio network scanning using geo-tagged information from wireless client devices of heterogeneous wide area networks

A method includes collecting roaming connectivity information for a plurality of wide area networks from a plurality of mobile devices, independently of the wide area networks, receiving the roaming connectivity information at a server and relating the connectivity information to the wide area networks and to a plurality of geographic locations to create a roaming network connectivity information database, generating a list of candidate wide area networks to serve as roaming networks for a specific mobile device and a given location based on the roaming connectivity information, and sending a preferred roaming list to the specific mobile device, the preferred roaming list including the list of candidate wide area networks. The method may include receiving location prediction information from the mobile device, and generating the list of candidate wide area networks based on a predicted location.