On Mon, Jan 08, 2001 at 03:10:55AM -0500, Phillip Zakas wrote:
Just a minor correction to the below posting: cell phone locations are NOT calculated using GPS. They're triangulated via the three nearest cell sites reading the cell phone signal. Accuracy is much lower than with GPS, but good enough for cops to, say, find a stranded motorist on a highway. I believe resolution is somewhere around 40 meters in densely populated areas (where there are many cell phone towers). This resolution figure varies
For now; future trends include GPS. See an article I wrote below. -Declan http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40623,00.html Qualcomm, for instance, said that its gpsONE technology shifts the choice to whomever is holding the handset. The user has three choices: a default of always on or always off, the option of deciding every time the device is used, or choosing which applications will reveal the information. The company argues that providing its customers with that flexibility will give them even more options than they enjoy with landline phones, which often reveal the subscription address of the person paying for the service. The gpsONE technology, which uses both GPS technology and base station triangulation, can locate a user within a diameter of 5 to 15 meters outdoors, and 30 to 60 meters indoors.