Re: [OT] Finding people with GSM phones (was Re: GPS heads up )

[Nate Williams]

> All this discussion of the wonders of GSM is wonderful, but doesn't apply
> to the USA where this mandate is happening.

You mean the mandate that GPS must be part of the phone?  As I said, my
friend at Qualcomm stated that GPS wasn't a requirement, but the ability
to know the location of the phone within 100m *is* a requirement.

Because the a large percentage (majority?) of cell phones are used in
locations where GPS can't be used effectively (think any big city inside
of a car), Qualcomm is not adding GPS chipsets into their phones.
According to my friend, the solutions they have designed work for both
the existing analog and digital phones being used today, and are much
better than the 100m accuracy marks required by law (as stated before,
the number 25m jumps to mind).

So, they get higher accuracy solutions that don't require changes to
their phones, thus driving up costs.  (Although it does require changes
to the cell towers, but that's a much cheaper alternative since there
are fewer of them *PLUS* it works with old phones, making it *very*
attractive to the government.)




Nate


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