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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."
How about enabling a switch to disable GPS except during 911 calls?
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
I wonder if the positional info could be used by the owner of the phone for some purpose - maybe tracking a fleet of drivers realtime or coupled with Wireless Web to provide navigation. There are some neat possibilities here that Sprint could capitalize on.
"So, um...like...second post d00dz!!!"
OK, now that I've got that out of the way (and probably pushed myself to 10th post as a result) here's a real comment.
Ads. Ads on the phone that *I* pay for. Quite simply, there won't be any. If any company tries to advertise themselves on my phone for which I pay per-minute charges, they'll find themselves on the ugly end of a lawsuit involving the "junk fax" law and some very bloodthirsty lawyers.
If you want to advertise to my phone, then someone else will be paying my damned monthly charges. Otherwise, beware.
As an aside, I've been around long enough to see that advertisers have pushed the boundaries far enough that the pushing back we see now is an inevitable result of what's been going on for the last two decades. The end result is that we're not going to stand for much in the way of blatant advertising in anything we buy, do, or watch. All that means is that the advertisers will become sneakier.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Perhaps the new Verizon/Disney/AOL/U.S.Justice.Dept will handle the entire issue by adding the fine to your monthly bill!
Keeping
I was 1.5 blocks from my apartment in Brooklyn when the guy grabbed my left arm and pressed a knife into my ribs.
As I reached into my right back pocket to get my wallet, my arm was pressing against my phone (Sprint PCS). It would have been very easy to activate some sort of panic button.
He only took about $60, but what if I were getting the shit kicked out of me, or raped, or whatever...
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
The example always given for this locater technology is 911 calls. Now, when you are calling 911, you do want them to know your location -- the sooner the better really. And I can see how this could serve a useful purpose. Politicians certainly pushed this application when stating their requirement to cell phone manufacturers.
/. are well aware, is that this is yet another step toward Big Brother. Insert the usual arguments here ["Oh c'mon, stop being so paranoid!" "Yeah, but why give them the power to abuse in the first place?"]. How far will this technology be extended? Will they start to track your location on the highways, to see if you are speeding if you get from location A to location B faster than you ought? If someone corrupt within some government agency decides they don't like you because of your idealogy (whatever it may be), can they start to track your locations at all times?
The downside to this, of course, as we at
I would like this technology if it can be turned off when desired, even if it's only out of principle. I don't like having a choice taken from me, even if it is "for my own good."
________________
Private Essayist
Budget (the rental car company) already implemented that, and they started tacking fines onto invoices.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
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...
I can tell you as someone who volunteers for both a fire department and an EMS service, how important E911 is. There are very often times where passing moterists will call 911 and report a car fire on the expressway, somewhere around exit 30 eastbound. Now often this is enough information and we can easily respond to the call. However, if they tell us its after exit 31, and it turns out to be before exit 30, then that means we have to continue down the expressway, turn around at the next exit, circle back at least to the exit before the accident, then turn around again and get back on in the right direction. This has just caused a delay in our response by at least a couple of minutes which can often mean the difference between some insulation burning under the hood, or the total loss of a car. On the other hand (EMS side) a five minute delay can mean the difference between saving a life. If someone is involved in an accident and loosing blood quickly, every second counts.
This winter, when coming home from the grocery store, I witnessed someone on a motorcycle take a turn just too sharply. The bike fell over on him and crushed his leg. I called 911 to report the accident on my cellphone (Verizon), and I didn't even have to tell the kind lady where I was, she told me. I went home that night and did some reseach, and found out that they can in fact pinpoint the location of a call. I beleve the company responsible for some of this is Cell-Loc (or something like that).
Hopefully, though, they won't use this to 'magically' close the store early on the day my bill is due, because they traced my calls and found out I am heading their way....
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
With the current anti terrorism mood, I doubt you'll be able to opt out.
In fact, if they weren't going to continuously log your whereabouts before, they probably will now. After all, we're just using this data retroactively to investigate terrorist attacks.
And they probably are only using the data that way. Today. But what about ten years from now when things are different, but they still have much greater access to things they should not? What about when we're no longer in a war against terrorism? Our government agencies don't have a great track record of not abusing power.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
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/
Am I the only one to find the idea of mixing a wireless communication device and a very precise position locator undesirable ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
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
"...to opt-out for all of the location based advertisements you will get with your GPS enabled phone"
Just like adds that can now be targeted at you based on where you are (thanks to the GPS enabled phones), there is something else that is also inevitable. Think about "targeted" viruses.
Those "smart" viruses would scare me more than those dull adds.
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
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
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
I work for SignalSoft Corp (http://www.signalsoftcorp.com) on their Wireless 911 product (http://www.signalsoftcorp.com/products/911/911.h
I see good and bad in all this. The good is that the E911 service is probably very useful. And in benign applications, cell phone tracking is not necessarily terrible. The bad is that I'm pretty sure that sooner or later, this technology WILL be abused. We attempt to build safeguards into our software to prevent abuse (http://www.signalsoftcorp.com/newsroom/pressrele
So, here's the scoop. If you are worried that you are worth tracking by powerful government agencies or very, very rich people, do one of two things: A) don't carry a cell phone or, B) take the battery out of your cell phone. B) is not foolproof, but it should be good enough until cell phone manufacturers are required by law to include a small backup battery in the guts of a cell phone large enough to run a GPS receiver. Fortunatly, current batteries are very bulky and expensive, and including a nonremovable secondary one in cell phones big enough to run a GPS receiver is likely to be many years in coming.
Second, push for privacy legislation. I don't know the laws governing cell phone tracking, but I bet they're a lot laxer than they should be. A court order (like a search warrant) should be necessary for any government agency to track the cell phone of any US citizen. If this is currently the case, great. If not... let's get a bill like this passed post-haste.
-Anonymous Coward who doesn't want to lose his job right now.
In Australia, with GSM, you call 000 or the international GSM emergency number (I forgot it), and it will automatically call the Fire/Ambo/Police number through your network provider (Telstra, Optus, Vodaphone or a reseller), if you have no signal to your own provider it will allow usage of any provider you have signal with for your emergency call. Even without a SIM card inserted in the phone. This is a legal requirement and seems to be a feature built in to GSM itself.
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. If they can force your phone to switch to 2 other cells after an emergency call, they could probably pin point you without GPS. With the hidden Network menus in Motorolla StarTac GSM and Nokia phones, you can see how far you are from the base station in metres.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
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.
Part of the gov't mandate is that the cellphones must be equipped to transmit requested GPS data even if they aren't turned on.
But they're only going to use it to find people making 911 calls. Right. Absolutely.
Kevin Fox
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.
If you have a Sprint TP2200 (and probably other touchpoint models), try this:
##33284 (scroll down to SAVE)
select SERVICE SCREEN and hit Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the
debug screen.
Last two lines are labeled LT and LG- those are
the lat/lng of the cell your phone is talking to.
Don't know how accurate it is; the cell my phone
picks up at home is (according to these numbers)
in the middle of the Detroit River.