Question about phone pings and triangulation.
Does anyone know how close to the exact location they can determine a particular cell phone is?
For example my phone is in my house right now. If someone were to look up my phones pings to try to determine where it is, could they come up with my exact address or a radius? If it's a radius, how tight is that radius?
IMO, I think they mostly just know the location of the tower that the phone pinged off of. What can give them more information though is if the phone begins to ping off multiple towers across a period of time, then they can much better determine the location of the phone using maps and triangulation methods. So depending on if they have multiple towers and different times of towers being used they can can more specific on their estiamte of the phone location.
Also, some phones have GPS capability which 911 can use if you are in trouble and they can sometimes get the exact coordinates BUT....I am not sure if that information is ever kept in the phone records and maybe can only be used if calling 911 or something. If GPS location is listed in phone records, then it would be exact location of phone at certain times. I kind of doubt they keep that in the phone records but not sure.
Do things such as mountains, or woods, or even tall buildings affect how tight the radius is? Or is it just the location of towers that make a difference?
No, just hits on towers, but the reception would affect whether or not a phone can even hit a tower so some information may not ever get recorded if a tower is not hit.
And last question is if you were in an area that your service provider (Verizon, AT&T, tmobile) gets bad reception in does that make a difference?
Example there is a small town nearby and in certain areas Verizon customers get no service. Your phone just constantly searches for a signal and wears down your battery. If I have Verizon and was in an area like that would my location be able to be determined?
My understanding is if reception is really bad and no tower is found by the phone, then the phone records would not have the tower location.