RE: Wireless phone question

["Jerry Decker" <radiobuzz@lycos.com>]

On Sat, 13 Oct 2001 22:28:29  
 Michael P Fitzpatrick Jr. wrote:

>
>No. The only way the phone is "traceable" is if you actually have it
>connected to the repeater system (in other words, making a phone call). 

Which is not correct at all. You should learn how the system works first before posting misinformation like this. I used to own a successful cell phone business for 5 years so I can enlighten you somewhat on this subject...

If cell phone users only placed calls and never received them, there wouldn't be a need to track their locations even when idle. Your cell phone always announces itself to the system with a short message on the access channel so that the system knows exactly where to direct a page should an incoming call come in. If you move to another cell, it re-registers in that new cell and the system updates its database accordingly. The cell phone also re-registers occasionally even if it stays in the same cell, just to refresh the database entry.

The only way to prevent a cell phone from registering (and revealing your location) is to turn it off.


>If the phone were to always transmit a signal that the phone company would want
>to trace, it would take up valuable spectrum and repeater space. 

Again, you seem to be providing more wrong info.
Read up "follow me" roaming which is now totally automatic across most of North America. Anyone with access to your home carrier's Home Location Register(HLR) can follow your travels if you merely turn on your phone...

>Some phones contain a GPS unit which if triggered can indicate the phone's location to
>the nearest cell tower in an emergency.

GPS technology doesn't have much to do with this. Location tracking is inherent in the way *all*(not just GPS units) cellular telephones work. The network needs to know (approximately) where you are in order to do its job. There is no known way to avoid revealing your location when your cell phone is on....






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