GPS tracking, cell phone GPS and mobile phone GPS track software packages are really drawing particular attention from potential buyers, cellular phone companies and software makers. The most up-to-date cell phones integrate GPS locator attributes to track cellphone location.
To help comply with Federal Communications Commission rules, cellular phone companies must be able to deliver authorities with cell phone latitude and longitude to an accuracy of 50 to 300 meters. Cell Tower Triangulation fails to always meet this requirement. For comparison, commercially available GPS modules are able to acquire accuracy right down to 3-10m. This varies according to several factors, as GPS signals are often quite weak and are impacted by many factors. With Mobile Location Services (MLS), the GSM cellular network provider uses triangulation techniques to calculate the position of the device, its accuracy is proven to be much worse than that of GPS. MLS is further affected by factors similar to GPS in the sense of the barriers affecting signal quality and the density of GSM towers to assist in the triangulation calculation. In rural areas position accuracy may be off as much as a mile.
GPS Hot Start is the term for whenever the GPS enabled mobile phone recalls its last known position, the satellites that had been in range before, as well as the almanac data in memory, and tries to find the same satellites and determine a new location based upon the previous information. This is generally the quickest GPS lock but Hot Start only works if the phone is in the same general area as when the GPS was last turned off. GPS Warm Start is the term for whenever the GPS enabled mobile phone recalls its last known position, and almanac used, but not which satellites were in range. It resets and tries to lock onto satellite signals and computes a brand new position. The GPS receiver has a general idea of which satellites toseek since it saved its last known location and also the almanac data helps determine which satellites are visible in the sky. The Warm Start is going to take longer than the Hot Start although not as long as a Cold Start. With GPS Cold Start, the device dumps all the previous information, and attempts to find satellites and attain a GPS lock. This usually takes more time since there is no known reference information. The GPS enabled mobile phone receiver must attempt to lock onto a satellite transmission from any available satellites.
As a way to have improved GPS lock times cellular phone manufacturers and telco operators introduced Assisted GPS technology. It downloads the ephemeris and helps triangulate the cell phone basic position. GPS Receivers will get a faster lock in return for a few kilobytes of data transmission. Assisted GPS, also known as A-GPS or AGPS, helps the performance of normal GPS in smartphones connected to the cell network. In America Sprint, Nextel, Verizon Wireless, and Alltel all use A-GPS. Which is a method of utilizing the cellular network to accelerate acquisition of GPS satellites.
A-GPS improves location tracking performance of cell phones (and other related devices) in a couple of ways:
The first way is by assisting to obtain a faster “time to first fix” (TTFF). Assisted GPS gets and stores information concerning satellite location via the cell network and so the location data does not require to be downloaded from the the satellite.
Another technique is by assisting locate handsets when GPS signals are weak or not available. Since GPS satellite signals may be impeded by tall buildings, and do not penetrate building interiors well A-GPS utilizes distance to cellular towers to approximate location when GPS signals are not available.
If satellite signals are not readily available, or accuracy is less important than life of the battery, utilizing Cell-ID is a useful substitute to GPS mobile phone location. The position of the mobile phone may be calculated by the cellular network cell id, that pinpoints the cell tower the cellphone is using. By knowing the location of the tower, then you can know roughly where the smartphone is. However, a tower can cover a massive area, from a few hundred meters, in high populationdensity locations, to several miles in lower density regions. This is the reason location CellID accuracy is less than than GPS accuracy. Even so tracking from CellID still presents a very useful substitute.
Another way of determining mobile phone location is Triangulation or Mobile Location Services (MLS). Cell Tower Triangulation makes use of signal analysis data to determine the time it takes signals traveling from the mobile phone to at least 3 cell towers to calculate position.
Do you really know just where your Mobile Workforce or Kids are?
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