It’s Almost Impossible For 911 To Trace Cell Phones

Today’s cell phones can do everything under the sun. You can take photos, create videos, and just about every cell phone has GPS capabilities.

Try to call 911 on your cell phone and 25 percent of the time law enforcement may only know you’re in an area within six miles of the nearest cellular tower.

If you have one of those low-cost prepaid phones you can forget about it. Tests have shown that they are among the worst at locating callers in an emergency.

Millions of Americans are dropping their easy-to-locate home phones in favor of a cellular-only lifestyle. That’s one reason more than 60 percent of calls to local 911 centers now come from cellular phones, a portion that’s steadily rising.

What really sucks is you the consumer pay big bucks for all of these crazy multimedia features not to mention all of the money you pay monthly to fund better 911 systems, and police still say that there are dangerous gaps in the safety net that people assume cell phones provide.

Such flaws in the 911 system have led to a growing series of rare but tragic cases where police could hear a person who had called 911 during a kidnapping or murder in progress but there was no information about the victims location.

Under the right circumstances the police have the ability to pinpoint your cell phone within a few dozen yards in a matter of seconds. This is only the case with newer phones equipped with GPS chips. Generally, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Alltel use this method.

Then you have those other service providers, such as AT&T and T-Mobile, use a triangulation method among several cell phone towers to locate callers.  Each of the aforementioned methods have their draw backs: GPS doesn’t work well inside buildings; triangulation does better inside, but tends to be less accurate.

In October, a Kernersville, N.C., woman was kidnapped and put in the trunk of a car. She then dialed 911 on her cell phone, and police found her.

That was one a situation that luckily ended well. On the other hand there are those that do not end so well.

Just recently there was a young lady by the name of Jennifer, a 31 year old mother, was kidnapped. She dialed 911 and got out two words… “HELP ME!” But according to police officers there wasn’t any location data on the call. Police later found her body in a vacant house.

Another lady by the name of Denise Amber Lee managed to call 911 while tied up in her abductor’s car. Authorities logged the call but were unable to locate her in time.

Her father said, “It boggles my mind how you can have a GPS on your dashboard that tells you turn by turn how to find the local pizza shop, but they can’t use that technology to find a cell phone of someone being murdered.”

Here is a tidbit of information that you may be interested in:

Federal rules require a level of accuracy for finding 911 callers.

Companies that use triangulation must fix callers within 100 meters for 67 percent of calls (about the area of a football field); 300 meters for 95 percent of calls. Companies using GPS must locate them within 50 meters for 67 percent of calls; 150 meters for 95 percent of calls.

The down side to this is that the rules allow carriers to average call performance across many states. Federal officials want better.

Every since January 1, 2007, prepaid phone companies had to sell handsets capable of providing location data. But they don’t have to replace phones that customers bought and stored for emergencies before that date.

Prepaid phones also suffer because they may not have a customer’s address attached, so police don’t even have a home site to start an investigation.

Warning: This next part is going to make you so upset you just may run out and punch somebody in the face! Keep in mind before you continue reading that you have been warned my friend!

911 centers have been benefiting from all of your hard earned bucks. They collect millions of dollars from your monthly fees, which are tacked onto phone bills. This money is supposed to be used to fund better 911 systems at law enforcement and emergency rescue centers. One state located in America reported that they were receiving $90 million a month of your hard earned money.

I don’t know about you but those figures leave a bad taste in my mouth. I already feel as if cell phone companies are ripping their consumers off now they are charging us for services that they are nowhere near being able to provide.

Tips That Could Possibly Save Your Life

• When you call 911 don’t hang up. The longer you keep the line open, the better the chance emergency personnel will find you.
• Although you may be in a panic state try to be as specific as possible when telling the operators your location.
• Ask your cellular provider what method they use to locate 911 calls on your phone.
• If your phone is more than 2 years old, you may want to consider purchasing a newer phone that has a GPS chip in it.
• If you live in a rural area, you should choose a phone with GPS rather than triangulation because its location method. Rural areas have fewer towers, which makes it harder to fix your position.

Please take a few moments and leave a comment regarding this post. I would love to hear your input on this matter.