Cell tracking, cell phone GPS and mobile phone tracking software are getting a lot of attention from consumers, mobile phone companies and application developers.  Mobile communications means more than just placing a phone call while moving.  The hottest smartphones include GPS position functionality to track phone location.   These features, and others such as SMS texting, internet access and the ability to use other software make mobile phones great gadgets.  But GPS satellites aren’t always available, for example when the handset is in a structure such as an office, shopping center, or even when driving.  That doesn’t mean mobile phone locating isn’t possible, but it does mean there are other methods of being a locator.

To track a cell phone involves several main methods of determining  mobile phone location.  GPS Global Positioning System-Satellites, Triangulation, and CellID.   All these technologies convert smartphones into mobile tracking systems.   These systems can be viewed as Network Based, Handset Based or a Hybrid approach.  GPS location is Handset based as it needs software applications installed on the cell phone  in conjunction with GPS hardware.  Triangulation and CellID are Network Based as they use the equipment and information from the cellular provider.  Hybrid systems combine methods to make best use of available data and to make location cell phone tracking faster.  

Mobile phone GPS is what people usually think of when considering tracking cell phones.   GPS (Global Positioning System) using satellites is the most common and more accurate way of tracking.   However GPS needs satellites to be in direct line of site of the cell phone.  It doesn’t work as well indoors or in dense cities.  If the phone is in a building, for example your house, shopping center, or often sitting in an automobile the signals might not reach the smartphone.   Sometimes thick cloud cover and thick foliage impedes with signals.  Some mobile phones will store the last known GPS location, others might not.  

Another thing with smartphone GPS location is the potential of wasting the battery.  It is important to be able to remotely adjust the frequency of taking GPS position.  Selecting real-time or periodic sampling affects both the accuracy of finding position along with how long the battery will last.  

GPS receivers, whether in a mobile phone, or a dedicated GPS tracking device, calculate location by precisely timing the signals sent by GPS satellites.  This data includes the time the message was transmitted, precise orbital information (the ephemeris), and the general system health and estimated orbits of all GPS satellites (the almanac).  GPS receivers often take longer to become ready to navigate after being turned on because it must acquire some basic information in addition to finding GPS satellite signals. This delay can be caused when the GPS mobile phone  has been unused for days or weeks, or has been moved a far distance while turned off for.  The GPS must update its almanac and ephemeris data and store it in memory.  The GPS almanac is a set of data that every GPS satellite transmits. When a GPS receiver has current almanac data in memory, it can acquire satellite signals and calculate initial location faster. 

GPS Hot Start is when the GPS enabled cell phone  remembers its last known location, the satellites that were in range at the time, the almanac information in memory, and makes an attempt to find the same satellites and determine a new position based upon the previous information. This is usually 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 when the GPS enabled handset  remembers its last known position, and almanac used, but not which satellites were in range. It performs a reset and tries  to find satellite signals and calculates a new position. 

The GPS receiver narrows the choice of which satellites toseek because it kept its last known position and the almanac data helps identify which satellites are in range. The Warm Start will take longer than the Hot Start but not as long as a Cold Start. 

With GPS Cold Start, the device dumps all the previous information, and attempts to locate satellites and achieve a GPS lock. This takes the longest because there is no known reference information.  The GPS enabled handset   receiver has to try to lock onto a satellite signal from any available satellites. 

In order to have better GPS lock times mobile phone manufacturers and wireless operators introduced Assisted GPS technology.  It downloads the ephemeris and helps triangulate the smartphone   general position.  GPS Receivers can get a faster lock at the expense of a few kilobytes of data transmission. 

Assisted GPS, also known as A-GPS or AGPS, improves the performance of standard GPS in devices connected to the cell network.   In America  Sprint, Nextel, Verizon Wireless, and Alltel all use AGPS. This is a method of utilizing the cell network to accelerate acquisition of GPS satellites.  A-GPS assists location tracking performance of mobile phones (and other connected devices) in a couple of ways:

One method is by helping to obtain a more rapid “time to first fix” (TTFF). Assisted GPS acquires and archivesdata about satellite locationvia the cell network so the position information doesn’t need to be downloaded from the the satellite. 

Another method is by assisting position  devices when GPS signals are weak or blocked.  As mentioned before GPS satellite signals may be impeded by tall buildings, and do not penetrate building interiors well. AGPS uses proximity to cellular towers to compute position when GPS signals are not available. 

If satellite signals are not available, or accuracy is less important than battery life, using Cell-ID is a good alternative to GPS smartphone location.  The position of the cell phone can be calculated by the cellular network cell id, that identifies the cell tower the phone is using.   By knowing the position of this tower, then you can know approximately where the cell phone  is.  However, a tower can cover a huge area, from a few hundred meters, in high population areas, to several kilometers in lower density areas. This is why location CellID precision is lower than GPS accuracy. Nonetheless tracking using CellID still provides a very useful alternative.    

Another way of calculating  cell phone location is Triangulation or Mobile Location Services (MLS).  Cell Tower Triangulation uses signal analysis data to calculate the time it takes signals to travel from your phone to at least three cell towers to determine location.   

To comply with Federal Communications Commission guidelines, cell phone companies must be able to provide authorities with device latitude and longitude to an accuracy of 50 to 300 meters.   Cell Tower Triangulation doesn’t always meet this requirement.  By way of comparison commercially available GPS systems can obtain accuracy down to 3-10m.  This depends upon many factors, as GPS signals are often very weak and are impacted  by many variables.   With Mobile Location Services (MLS), the GSM cellular network provider uses triangulation techniques to try to pinpoint the location of the smartphone, its accuracy is proven to be much worse than that of GPS.  MLS is further impacted by the same issues as  GPS in the sense of the barriers impeding signal strength and the density of GSM towers to help in the triangulation calculation.   In remote areas location accuracy may be off as much as a mile. 

Generally speaking it comes down to what location tracking system is available, and the requirements for accuracy.  Hybrid methods are emerging that use various techniques in tandem to provide best available location given available resources.  It may be critical to consider how GPS location software programs handle the data and controls handset settings.   Having real time tracking on demand, or preferring to minimize battery use and data transmission should be expected.  Generally the application determines the location with a GPS receiver and transmits the tracking data to a server through a cellular packet data connection. The data connection to the server is usually made via the Internet.  How often GPS samples are taken and how often and by what method the data is sent to the server affect effectiveness and costs. 

Consider that there is a fundamental difference between mobile phone GPS Tracking and Navigation.  GPS cell phone tracking is usually related to someone keeping records of either real-time or historical smartphone  location, while Navigation deals with the mobile phone  user figuring out how to get from point A to point B.

A really great software package that includes remote control of cell phone settings, and combines Mobile Phone Tracking  with SMS text message, Call Log,  MMS multi-media message monitoring, and a web account for storage and review is PhoneBeagle.  

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