Spymobi

GPS tracking, mobile GPS and mobile phone tracker applications are unquestionably securing focus from individuals, mobile phone companies and application creators. The current smartphones integrate GPS location functionality to track cell phone location.

To help comply with Federal Communications Commission rules, cellular phone companies have to be able to provide authorities with cell phone latitude and longitude to an accuracy of 50 to 300 meters. Cell Tower Triangulation fails to always meet this requirement. For evaluation, commercially available GPS systems will be able to get precision right down to less than 10 meters. This is dependent on many factors, as GPS signals tend to be particularly weak and are disturbed by numerous variables. With Mobile Location Services (MLS), the GSM cell network provider uses triangulation algorithms to estimate the location of the device, its accuracy is proven to be less than than that of GPS. MLS is also affected by factors similar to GPS in the sense of the barriers impeding signal strength and the density of GSM towers to assist in the triangulation effort. In rural areas location accuracy may be off as much as a mile.
GPS Hot Start refers to when the GPS enabled mobile phone retains its last calculated position, the satellites which were in view at the time, together with the almanac data in memory, and tries to lock onto the same satellites and compute a brand new location 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 switched off. GPS Warm Start describes whenever the GPS enabled smartphone keeps its last known location, and almanac used, but not which satellites were in view. It resets and makes an attempt to connect to satellite signals and calculates the latest position. The GPS receiver narrows the choice of which satellites toseek since it saved its last known position and also the almanac data helps determine which satellites are within view. The Warm Start is going to take longer than the Hot Start although not as long as a Cold Start. With GPS Cold Start, the device deletes all the previous information, and attempts to find satellites and obtain a GPS lock. This normally takes the longest because there is no known reference data. The GPS enabled smartphone receiver has to attempt to lock onto a satellite signal from any available satellites.
As a way to get improved GPS lock times mobile phone manufacturers and system providers created Assisted GPS technology. This downloads the ephemeris and helps triangulate the mobile phone general position. GPS Receivers will get a faster lock in exchange for a few kilobytes of data transmission. Assisted GPS, often known as A-GPS or AGPS, improves the performance of normal GPS in devices connected to the cellular network. In the United States Sprint, Nextel, Verizon Wireless, and Alltel all use A-GPS. This is a method of using the cellular network to speed up finding of GPS satellites.
A-GPS assists location tracking performance of smartphones (and also other connected devices) in two ways:
The first way is by assisting to secure a faster “time to first fix” (TTFF). A-GPS gets and stores information about the location of satellites using the cellular network and so the position details does not need to be downloaded from the the satellite.
The next process is by assisting locate cell phones when GPS signals are weak or impeded. Due to the fact GPS satellite signals may be interfered with by tall buildings, and do not penetrate building interiors well Assisted GPS makes use of proximity to cellular towers to approximate location when GPS signals are not readily available.
When satellite signals are not available, or accuracy is less important than life of the battery, making use of Cell-ID is a viable alternative to GPS smartphone tracking. The location of the cell phone may be approximated by the cellular network cell id, which recognizes the cell tower the cell phone is using. By understanding the position of this tower, then you can know roughly where the device will be. Still, a tower can cover an enormous area, from a couple of hundred meters, in high populationdensity areas, to a few miles in lower density areas. This is the reason location CellID accuracy is lower than GPS accuracy. Nevertheless tracking from CellID still delivers a very viable substitute.
Another method of calculating 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 the smartphone to at least 3 cell towers to judge position.