Why are cell phone companies still using cellular towers for locating cell phones instead of GPS?
What are their reasons if almost every phone has a GPS chip in it now?
Public Comments
Several reasons. Firstly, not every phone contains a GPS receiver -- they are fairly costly and require energy. Secondly, GPS receivers do not work well indoors. But most any cell phone can be picked up by three or more towers, so the position can be found by triangulation.
The GPS satellites are 23,000 miles up. The towers are only good for about 25 miles max. If your phone was 100 watts it might make it.
Because even if the phones have them installed, they do not send out a locator signal unless the user has turned Location On. By factory default, the GPS Location only activates when 911 is dialed. The user must activate the GPS Locator to always active on their own. How many of us actually go into the menu and switch Location to On, instead of leaving it set to E911?
There are a number of limitations on using GPS technology in cell phones to locate the cell phone, therefore the towers are more universally used to locate the cell phone if the GPS technology is not giving an adequate location of the cell phone. Below is a list of 3 limitations of the GPS technology in cell phones. 1 - GPS cell phones need a clear line of sight with the sky in order to establish a location. 2 - The user of the phone will be aware that the application is running. 3 - The user needs to ensure the cell phone stays charged because the phone is sending its location every two minutes and it is using more battery power than it typically does and will need to be charged more frequently. Any or all of these limitations may keep a cell phone location from being accurately determined. In some cases, only the cell tower locations in relation to the cell phone is the only technology to help approximate the cell phone location.
