I know this is technically possible, but it it's accuracy the stuff of fictional film?! Basically SWMBO's mobile has gone missing - have taken the typical locations to pieces trying to find it, but with no luck. Can't see how's someone's pinched it, based on the locations she's been in the last 24hrs.

So my mind wanders onto tracking possibilities. It's still ringing out, so could I find the location of the cell signal - or would it involve building some contrapation out of several hundred Maplin parts??

Steve

It cant be done....

Phones can only be traced to the "cell" they are in... eg which particular antenna they are connected to... that could be up to a 10 mile radius.. and also doubt that the mobile company would give you that info

Yes it can be done, and it can be reasonably accurate depending on the transmitter density.

However, the mobile company is very unlikely to help unless *cough* it's to aid in an ongoing police investigation.

I have seen it done, down to a particular street. I'm not saying that it could be done all the time - as said above it might depend on other factors, but I was suprised at how accurate and how quickly it was possible.

Buy her a new phone, she'll be grateful!

FWIW When ours have been nicked, they always get "The phone you are calling is switched off." If yours is still ringing out, that's a sort of good sign, i.e. hopefully mislaid, probably not nicked or left out in the rain...

Fingers crossed

Mo

It cant be done....

Phones can only be traced to the "cell" they are in... eg which particular antenna they are connected to... that could be up to a 10 mile radius.. and also doubt that the mobile company would give you that info

Yes , but each mast has a number of different transmitters in different directions so that gives you a rough bearing. In cities where these are spaced quite close together two or more of these rough bearings are enough to get you quite an accurate estimate of the location - down to street level.

Of course the phone company won't help for just a private user.

Best bet is to send a text to the phone offering a reward and hopefully it'll be found by an honest person.

Don't bother phoning as that will just run the battery down quicker.

The current functionality of mobile phones will only provide the location of a mobile in relation to the cell it is in.....and giving that cells can have a maximum radius of 35km.....

It is however a requirement in the US...for emergency services....to be able to detemine the location of a mobile phone within 100 yards I believe.

If most manufacturers are going down the GPS route now but about 5 years ago we looked into EOTD....basically triangulation....not sure what's happening now.

as others have said, it's possible, but you can't do it.

call the phone company, and get the IMEI blocked once you're pretty confident it's not coming back - that way it'll be barred by all networks.

The EISEC service for the emergency services gives an ellipse with major and minor axes, angle and degree of certainty. The ellipses are typically ~1km in diameter in urban areas, much bigger in rural areas. The certainty percentage is a bit of a joke. Vodafone and Orange provide much better accuracy than O2, which is diabolical. Note this service is only available on 999 calls. There are commercial services, which rely on the consent of the phone user, but they all rely on receiving a call from the number concerned. Without it, I guess the phone provider could narrow it down to a single cell, but the triangulation probably wouldn't work.

HTH

Thanks for all the replies guys - didn't expect it to start such a discussion. I'll probably end up buying her another phone, again

Might look into phone insurance this time too

Steve

Thanks for all the replies guys - didn't expect it to start such a discussion. I'll probably end up buying her another phone' date=' again

Might look into phone insurance this time too

Steve[/quote']

Dont -its such a scam...

The majjor phone network I used to work for had an insurance company that only paid out if phone was accidentally damaged (ie still in possession) or if the person was mugged. Needed a police report too. Basically the phone needed to be on you when you lost it (if you follow!!!). If it were on a desk, say in a cafe, and someone pinched it - not covered as you didnt take precaution to safguard your phone.

I felt so guilty giving over the news. Especially to those who have been paying the 7 quid a month for years...

What about using something like this

http://app.findamobile.com/fam2/

costs 33p a go.

"In addition, use FindaMobile to locate loved ones on a long journey or night out for your peace of mind"

More like:

"In addition, use FindaMobile to locate loved ones on a long journey or night out to spy on their cheating, lying *** and see where they really went!"

it ceratinly is possible to roughly work out where a mobile phone is,

when you are mving about you somtimes if you have your radio on hear beep -beep kinf of sound, that's when you phone switches from one cell to another, every time your phone changes cell the network remembers which cell you are in, to locate a mobile, the server in that cell pings he phone and it measures the amount of time for the signal to be relayed back from your phone to the mast, it's a few milliseconds or somting?? they can use this to work out how far you are from the mast, if there is more than one mast in that cell(very likely) they repeat the procedure from another mast if it is in range, using these two(or more) bearings they can triangulate where the phone is.

it works on very much the same principle as the gps system but uses ground stations instead of satellites.

Triangulating mobile phones obviously does work and very accurately, this is easy to see if you've ever used the 'find me now' service on most mobile operators wap sites, it shows you a local map and pin points your location to within a couple of meters.

Also there are plenty of web based companies that offer the tracking service, only problem is you need the phone in your possesion to register it, therefore if you lose the phone first you cant register it.