Can Cingular triangulate for a lost phone?
I misplaced my phone yesterday and am wondering if Cingular would do this for their customers. The phone appears to still be turned on and have signal because when I call it, it does not go to vmail right away.
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If it's still on I suppose it's possible, but I don't think they'd do it unless there was a 911 call being placed from the handset.
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ralph_on_me said:
If it's still on I suppose it's possible, but I don't think they'd do it unless there was a 911 call being placed from the handset.
Still will not be done the problem is they cannot pinpoint to the feet a phone is you can be reading of a tower and be anywhere from 3-5 miules from that tower. thats a big posisble coverage area.
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Wow.. youre totally wrong. You need to read the article just posted about triangulation. As it stands, in the Dallas market I know that with our tower count, we can usually pinpoint the location of a phone within 75meters. BUT-This can only be done if the phone is initiating a 911 call, or if some bureaucrat uses the Patriot Act as an excuse to stalk somebody.
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nothing will be done fot s lost phone
for that reason it does not exist. i know it sounds wierd.
for that reason it does not exist. i know it sounds wierd.
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CAN they do it? Yes. Will they do it? No. Why? Because the e911 system in place for emergencies only (and only because carriers are legally required to set it up). Plus, you have no idea how often people lose their phones, and what kind of resources it would take to try to locate all of those phones. It sounds like a good idea, before you find out what it would take to implement it.
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It makes sense that it it's resource intensive it would only be used in emergencies (which this obviously is not). I just didnt know if it was something that they could just punch in and find out just as easy as looking up your account.
They are, after all, keeping track of all the phones on their network at all times, otherwise how would the system know which tower to use to reach your phone when you have an incoming call. But if they don't have access to that information easily, then it's understandable why they wouldn't use it.
Heck, I don't need super acurate triangulation (although it would be nice 🙂 ) but just a general idea of where it's at would at least let me narrow it down a bit. It could be at my house (on silent) for ...
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They are, after all, keeping track of all the phones on their network at all times, otherwise how would the system know which tower to use to reach your phone when you have an incoming call. But if they don't have access to that information easily, then it's understandable why they wouldn't use it.
Heck, I don't need super acurate triangulation (although it would be nice 🙂 ) but just a general idea of where it's at would at least let me narrow it down a bit. It could be at my house (on silent) for ...
(continues)
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The network doesn't actually keep track of a phone's location in real time, but the tower does register the information at certain points (making/receiving a call et cetera). It's not known what the exact location of your phone under normal circumstances, only that you're within range of the tower you're registered on. On GSM towers (the primary technology now used by Cingular) that range is a maximum of 35km or 21mi, but it's often less.
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AdamDavid85 said:
CAN they do it? Yes. Will they do it? No. Why? Because the e911 system in place for emergencies only (and only because carriers are legally required to set it up). Plus, you have no idea how often people lose their phones, and what kind of resources it would take to try to locate all of those phones. It sounds like a good idea, before you find out what it would take to implement it.
Thats what I mean for the purposes of a lost or stolen phone the ability does not exist.
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