Lose Weight After Pregnancy

Mobile communications means more than just making a phone call while on the move.    The newest mobiles include GPS position functionality to track phone location.   These features, and others such as text messaging, internet access and the capability to utilize other software make cell phones great gadgets.  However GPS satellites aren’t always available, such as when the handset is in a structure such as an house, mall, or even in a car.  That doesn’t mean smartphone locating isn’t possible, but it does mean there are other ways of being a locator.

To track a mobile phone involves several primary methods of calculating  smartphone position.  GPS Global Positioning System-Satellites, Triangulation, and CellID.   All these technologies convert smartphones into mobile tracking devices.   These systems can be viewed as Network Based, Handset Based or a Hybrid approach.  GPS location is Handset based as it needs software programs installed on the mobile phone  along 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 location mobile phone tracking faster.  

GPS on cell phones is what people usually think of when looking at tracking mobile phones.   GPS (Global Positioning System) using satellites is the most common and more accurate means of tracking.   However GPS needs satellites to be in direct line of site of the handset. 

Sometimes thick cloud cover and thick foliage impedes with signals. 

If sitting in an automobile the signals might not reach the mobile phone.  Some smartphones will keep the last known GPS location, others might not.  

Another thing with handset GPS tracking is the potential of draining the battery.  It is important to be able to remotely adjust how often 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 smartphone, or a dedicated GPS tracking device, compute location by precisely timing the signals transmitted by GPS satellites.  This data includes the time the message was transmitted, precise orbital information (the ephemeris), and the general system health and rough orbits of all GPS satellites (the almanac).  GPS receivers sometimes take a long time to become ready to use after being turned on because it must acquire some basic information in addition to capturing GPS satellite signals. This slow start is sometimes caused when the GPS cell phone  has been unused for days or weeks, or has been transported a far 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 compute initial position more quickly. 

GPS Hot Start is when the GPS enabled handset  keeps its last calculated position, the satellites that were in range at the time, the almanac data in memory, and tries to find the same satellites and calculate 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 switched off. 

GPS Warm Start is when the GPS enabled handset  keeps its last calculated position, and almanac used, but not which satellites were in range. It resets and makes an attempt  to obtain satellite signals and calculates a new position. 

The GPS receiver has a general idea of which satellites tolook for because it stored its last known position and the almanac data helps identify which satellites are in range. The Warm Start will take more time than the Hot Start but not as long as a Cold Start. 

With GPS Cold Start, the device deletes all the previous data, and attempts to locate satellites and achieve a GPS lock. This takes longer than other methods because there is no known reference information.  The GPS enabled smartphone   receiver has to try to lock onto a satellite signal from any available satellites. 

Assisted GPS, also known as A-GPS or AGPS, enhances the performance of standard GPS in cell phones connected to the cellular network.   In the United States  Sprint, Nextel, Verizon Wireless, and Alltel all use AGPS. This is a method of utilizing the cell network to speed up acquisition of GPS satellites.  GPS Receivers can get a faster lock in exchange for a few kilobytes of data transmission.

A-GPS improves location tracking performance of cell phones (and other connected devices) in two ways:

One way is by helping to obtain a faster “time to first fix” (TTFF). Assisted GPS acquires and storesinformation about satellite positionvia the cell network so the position information doesn’t need to be downloaded from the the satellite. 

The next method is by helping position  smartphones when GPS signals are weak or impeded.  As mentioned before GPS satellite signals may be impeded by tall buildings, and do not penetrate building interiors well. A-GPS uses proximity to cellular towers to estimate 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 useful alternative to GPS smartphone location.  The location of the mobile phone can be computed by the cell network cell id, that identifies the cell tower the phone is connected to.   By knowing the location of this tower, then you can know approximately where the mobile phone  is.  But, a tower can cover a huge area, from a few hundred meters, in high density areas, to several kilometers in lower density areas. This is why location CellID accuracy is less than than GPS accuracy. Nevertheless location from CellID still presents a very good substitute.    

Another method of determining  smartphone position 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, cell 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.  By way of comparison commercially available GPS modules are able to achieve accuracy down to less than 10 meters.  This depends upon many factors, as GPS signals are often very weak and are affected  by many variables.   With Mobile Location Services (MLS), the GSM cellular network provider utilizes triangulation algorithms to determine the location of the smartphone, its accuracy is proven to be much worse than that of GPS.  MLS is also affected by the same issues as  GPS in the sense of the interference impeding signal strength and the density of GSM towers to assist in the triangulation effort.   In remote areas location accuracy may be off as much as a mile. 

It may be critical to consider how GPS location software programs handle the data and controls cell phone 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 using 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 basic difference between handset GPS Tracking and Navigation.  GPS cell tracking is typically associated with someone keeping records of either real-time or historical
handset  location, while Navigation deals with the handset  user determining how to get from point A to point B.

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

Follow this link if you are interested in    Mobile Monitoring Software  compatible with BlackBerry  and  Android  Smartphones, used or Parental Monitoring and Small Business Employee Monitoring .  

Visit this link for more information regarding the latest software for
GPS Tracking .

Tags: cell phone tracking, employee monitoring, GPS tracker, mobile GPS, parental control, parenting, women's issues

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 9th, 2010 at 12:03 pm and is filed under pregnancy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.