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GPS Meets PCS
The Donald writes: "According to an article at News.com, Sprint PCS will be starting to implement E911 calls in Rhode Island sometime in October. The FCC required that all cell phone providers have an improved E911 system in place by October first. This is the first step in making the E911 a reality, with Sprint being the first major company to actually put a phone on the market that will work with E911; instead of just filing papers with the FCC saying the implementation is just to hard. The Samsung N300 phone will use GPS to track the people down. I like the idea, I just hope the phone will display the GPS information, and there is a way to opt-out for all of the location based advertisements you will get with your GPS enabled phone."
Disclaimer: I work for TeleCommunication Systems Inc. - we provide nationwide E-911 service.
During the FCC mandate for Phase I - which most carriers still have not fully deployed was based on cellsite/sector / some other general location. For Phase II E-911 the requirement is a PDE. As there are literally hundreds of ways to get this information (GPS handsets are only one). Under the TCS solution for Phase II we query a "pluggable" PDE for the location information - so the only time that anyone gets your specific location information is only when it is needed (as in during a 911 call). The only real difference with the Sprint solution is that they have brought the PDE functionality in-house.
Just to try to help clarify...
There was a case in New Haven, Connecticut, where Acme, was "asked" to refund charges for "speed violations" by the state department of consumer protection. When the GPS system tracked a speed above 90 MPH, ACME charged a cool $150. The Atty. General has asked for refunds. It should be pointed out that ACME does not inform the local police in any way. They just pocket each fine. They now have there own speeding enforcement system, and there own way of cashing in! I thought some smaller towns had a crooked traffic court. This is a private firm, their own judge and jury; where each fine equals more profit. This is just not right.
You know who I think is crazy? All my ex-girlfriends!
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
GPS and phones aren't that new.
Garmin had their gps phone a couple of years ago.
When you put in an emergency call it would send
your coordinates along with it.
It was nifty, i almost got one for my birthday.
If you're looking for a link here it is..
http://www.garmin.com/products/navTalk/
911 service can also be screwed up by PBX systems. I know of several cases where someone called 911 and the ambulance responded to the company headquarters building, where the PBX was located, instead of the building where the emergency occurred.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
That's the other method people are proposing.
GPS advantages/disadvantages:
+ precise
+ works great outdoors
- extra cost, extra weight, extra bulk (another antenna), less battery life
- doesn't work indoors or in cars
Triangulation advantages/disadvantages:
+ low cost
+ phones remain the same size/weight/battery life (triangulation can be mostly done in infrastructure)
- generally less precise
- in urban environments, multipath interference and distortion caused by buildings is a problem
- in rural environments, you're lucky to get a signal from one tower, much less 3!, so it doesn't work too well.
Note that the GPS implemntation doesn't need to be a full one-- some of the processing smarts can be located in the cell towers. Unfortuantly, this doesn't buy you much as the radio section is still the major size and power draw.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
On their site, they have a spiel about privacy protection. Here's a quote:
Of course, who knows if this will be respected by the OEM's who implement the snaptrack technology in the phones. There's always the tin-foil-over-the-gps-antenna solution... maybe those people with the tin foil hats are on to something!
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
thousands, five, what's the difference?
No, seriously... I realize there are at least two (and possibly as many as four) other providers that cover more than ten square miles with something resembling recent technology.
Good thing The Market has provided us with all these choices, eh?
Instead of these other posts that sound "nagging" in nature, I'll give you a real life story as to why these things once existed, and now rarely do.
911 gets a call from a cell phone. They answer, and all they hear is a constant loud roar. After a minute or so of not being able to communicate, the line is dropped. The call comes in again, 5 to 10 minutes later. The same roar, yet no communication with anyone. The 911 operator gets curious, and makes a few calls. The line drops. Yet another call, minutes later, same roar, no human. A unit is deployed to find where this signal is coming from. Strangely enough the signal was traced to the Pontiac Silverdome (in Michigan, over 60,000+ seating).
They traced the signal to a man who was watching a Detroit Lions game. The man was quite large, probably a little too large for the seat that was given to him. Anyways, his cell phone was pressing up against the arm rest of the seat, and pushing the emergency button every time he shifted. This story is true, and there are several of these stories in existance if you take the time to talk to 911 operators.
This is the reason that cell phones now rarely have 911 buttons. This is also the reason most phones will now come with a "keyguard" function that ignores all button pushes until a certain key combination is pressed. It's just not feasible, with how easily buttons can be pushed in a pocket, on a belt, or in a purse. Cell phones may be good for many things, just not this.
In fact, when I bought a new Sprint PCS phone a year ago, that business went away when I switched to a newer plan.
It's my understanding that common practice in Europe (and Japan?) is no charge for incoming calls. It sure ain't so here. I figure they are going to get a certain price per minute, whether they double the Tx charge or have separate Tx and Rx charges. BUT, again as I understand it, Eurpoean practice is that land lines charge by the minute too, so there's no big discrepancy. In the US, however, local landline calls are unlimited with the basic monthly plan, so a landline call to a cell phone makes it hard to charge the Tx end. There is NO WAY the US regulatory bodies would allow Tx surcharges for landline calls to cellphones. Customers would howl bloody murder!
Infuriate left and right
Freeway-side phones in Californa are even worse. Not only do they put you on hold, I once stopped at one to report an accident i'd witnessed and got a message indicating that the phone had been disconnected.
Looking over at Spamhaus, we find that Sprint is working hard to be in the top 3 spam-friendly ISPs, currently hosting 18 sites of known spammers and spam software and ignoring all complaints. If this is what their policy is on personal information, I don't think I want them to know where I am.
I work for a major European GSM manufacturer, although not for that department. But I can assure you that you don't need GPS at all to locate a GSM-phone. In Europe, we have been using a similar system for years. It's very simple : the GSM-network knows what cell you're in (what basestation you're connected to), so it's very easy to route your emergency call (112) to the nearest operator. You might be a few miles off in the worst case, but in general it's down to 100 or 200 metres. The police is even using it to track known criminals when they travel from town to town. And it doesn't have to be real-time, the information can later be retrieved from the network databases too.
Faraday strikes back.
the international GSM emergency number (I forgot it)
112 will get you the authorities in every country with a GSM network. North America's 911 is 999 in England, for example, but 112 will get you there no matter where you are.
Handy little number to know...
Due to the very precise time division multiplexing used with GSM, the distance you are from the base station you are currently subscribed can be gleaned down to a metre.
I really, really, really doubt this. The whole of Europe is trying to find out how to position yourself with mobile phones to get down to one metre precision. The solution of just using GSM with the cells information and distance information gets you in about 400 metres accuracy (depending of the density of cells etc.). Combine it with GPS, you can try to get it to 10 metres in ideal situations. Of course GPS doesn't help you much in cities like New York with their high buildings blocking the satellites signal and having multi path effects.
So, if this is really true, tell your telco to come to Europe and earn shit loads (actually Vodaphone is British)... Don't believe everything that companies say.