Re: Cellular location...

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On Fri, 24 Jan 1997 aaron@herringn.com wrote:

> Presented in a "this will help 911" context. Still disconcerting.
> 
> [...]
> Companies working on the technology to track cellular phone calls
> have been given additional incentive with a Federal Communications
> Commission order that all cell phone service companies have location
> programs in place by the year 2001.
> [...]

I wonder how expensive it would be to put a GPS receiver in a cell phone and
have the option to transmit the coordinates on a separate channel.  There
would be little difference between this and forcing cell phone companies to
triangulate every call.  The primary motivation for this is almost certainly
"location escrow" to make it easier for the feds to track drug dealers.


Mark
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At 07:54 PM 1/25/97 -0500, Mark M. wrote:
>> Companies working on the technology to track cellular phone calls
>> [...]
>I wonder how expensive it would be to put a GPS receiver in a cell phone and
>have the option to transmit the coordinates on a separate channel.  

Pretty expensive - GPS receivers currently cost ~$200, which is more
than the average cell phone, and needs a whole separate set of 
radio-receiver hardware, so you'd about double the size of your phone.
On the other hand, the cell sites already know which you're close to,
and can easily enough track when you've made transitions between cells.
So they can get a good start on location by processing information that the
phone companies need to have anyway.  Would they save any of this
for later?  Of course not :-)

>"location escrow" to make it easier for the feds to track drug dealers.
And everybody else....


#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp
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