The attack on the Twin Towers in New York brought attention to more than just the spread of terrorism around the globe; it also showed how vulnerable our communications systems are, especially in regards to cell phones. The FCC has ordered app cellular phone companies to institute technology allowing for cell phones to be traced within 100 meters. The cellular companies for the most part have integrated the GPS technology into the actual phone itself instead of taking on the momentous task of changing and modifying their networks of towers.
Now before you get all excited about the fact that your phone may have GPS technology let me set you straight. This is not the kind that you have in your car or use on your boat when you go fishing offshore. This is exclusively for tracking where you are when you are making a call. If you are a good guy this can be great news, if you get lost or in trouble and dial 911 they can locate you. If you are a bad guy, or a terrorist, this isn't great news for you because they can now trace your calls and find out exactly where you are to take you down.
Now, on to a brighter outlook, the cell carriers are working to enable customer accessible GPS service. Some of these are available now and able to be utilized through third party providers.
Motorola is the maker for cellular phone GPS tracking units for Nextel using the Motorola i205, i305, i530, i710, i730, i733, i736 and i830 iDENŽ. As on of the leaders in bringing this technology to the market, Motorola sources say that the phones are programmable which allows for software developers to design the applications that will allow the user of the phone access to the GPS data in addition to the providers of the service.
As of now, the Nextel Corporation offers a wide variety of cell phone GPS tracking solutions made for use with the above mentioned Motorola cell phones. The Mobile Locator One is of the well-known cell phone GPS tracking solutions developed by Nextel. In addition there are other solutions are provided by the affiliates of Nextel itself, as well as by third parties like Trimble and Mapquest.
Nokia recently announced that they were offering their Xpress-On GPS available as optional hardware to the owners of the Nokia 5140 model cell phones in North America. This would allow for the phones to be used over the GSM networks through location service applications.
Hopefully with the advances we are seeing it won't be long before the GPS technology is widely available. It is already available in smart phones like the Treo as an upgrade with additional software.
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