Across the country and around the world, Cell tracking, cell phone GPS and mobile phone tracker software are attracting attention from consumers, mobile phone companies and program developers.   The latest mobiles include GPS locator features to track phone location.   These features, and others such as SMS texting, web access and the capability to utilize 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 school, mall, or even when driving.  That doesn’t mean cell phone locating isn’t available, but it does mean there are other methods of being a locator.

To track a cell phone involves several primary methods of calculating  smartphone location.  GPS Global Positioning System-Satellites, Triangulation, and CellID.   All these technologies transform mobile phones 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 requires software applications installed on the mobile phone  in conjunction with GPS hardware.  Triangulation and CellID are Network Based as they use the equipment and data from the wireless provider.  Hybrid systems combine methods to make best use of available data and to make position cell tracking faster.  

Mobile phone GPS is what people usually think of when looking at tracking smartphones.   GPS (Global Positioning System) using satellites is the most common and more accurate means of tracking.   But GPS requires satellites to be in direct line of site of the cell phone. 

Sometimes thick cloud cover and dense foliage impedes with signals. 

If riding in a car the signals might not reach the mobile phone.  Some smartphones will keep the last known GPS location, others might not.  

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

GPS receivers, whether in a smartphone, or a dedicated GPS tracking device, calculate location by precisely timing the signals sent by GPS satellites.  This information includes the time the message was transmitted, precise orbital information (the ephemeris), and the general system condition and rough orbits of all GPS satellites (the almanac).  GPS receivers often take a long time to become ready to use after being turned on because it must acquire some basic information in addition to finding GPS satellite signals. This delay is sometimes caused when the GPS device  has been unused for days or weeks, or has been transported a significant distance while unused 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 signals and determine initial location more quickly. 

GPS Hot Start is when the GPS enabled handset  remembers its last calculated location, the satellites that were in view before, the almanac information in memory, and makes an attempt to obtain the same satellites and determine a new position based upon the previous data. This is generally the quickest GPS lock but Hot Start only works if the phone is generally in the same location as when the GPS was last turned off. 

GPS Warm Start is when the GPS enabled mobile phone  recalls its last known position, and almanac used, but not which satellites were in range. It resets and makes an attempt  to connect to satellite signals and computes a new position. 

The GPS receiver narrows the choice of which satellites tolook for 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 data, and attempts to locate satellites and accomplish a GPS lock. This takes longer than other methods because there is no known reference information.  The GPS enabled cell phone   receiver has to attempt to lock onto a satellite signal from any available satellites. 

In order to have better GPS lock times mobile phone manufacturers and network operators developed Assisted GPS technology.   In the United States  Sprint, Nextel, Verizon Wireless, and Alltel all use A-GPS. This is a means of utilizing the cellular network to speed up finding of GPS satellites.  GPS Receivers can get a faster lock at the expense of a few kilobytes of data transmission.

A-GPS improves location tracking performance of smartphones (and other connected devices) in a couple of ways:

One method is by helping to obtain a more rapid "time to first fix" (TTFF). A-GPS acquires and archivesdata about the location of satellitesusing the cell network so the coordinates information doesn’t require to be downloaded from the the satellite. 

The second method is by assisting position  smartphones 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 utilizes proximity to cellular towers to estimate location 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 cell phone location.  The position of the smartphone can be computed by the cell network cell id, which identifies the cell tower the phone is connected to.   By knowing the location of this tower, then you can know approximately where the device  is.  But, 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 accuracy is lower than GPS accuracy. Nevertheless tracking using CellID still provides a very useful alternative.    

Another way of calculating  mobile 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 estimate position.   

To comply with Federal Communications Commission guidelines, cellular phone companies must be able to provide authorities with cell phone latitude and longitude to an accuracy of 50 to 300 meters.   Cell Tower Triangulation doesn’t always meet this requirement.  For comparison commercially available GPS modules can achieve 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 cell network provider utilizes triangulation algorithms to estimate the location of the handset, its accuracy is proven to be less than than that of GPS.  MLS is also impacted by factors similar to  GPS in the sense of the interference affecting signal strength and the density of GSM towers to help in the triangulation calculation.   In remote areas position accuracy may be off as much as a mile. 

It might be critical to consider how GPS location software applications handle the data and controls smartphone settings.   Having real time tracking on demand, or preferring to minimize battery use and data transmission should be offered.   Typically the application determines the location with a GPS receiver and transmits the tracking data to a server through a data connection. The data connection to the server is usually made over the Internet.  How often GPS samples are taken and how often and by what method the information is sent to the server impact effectiveness and costs. 

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

A really great software package that includes remote control of handset settings, and combines Phone GPS 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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