Mobile Phone Tracking Information

We've all seen movies where the super duper action hero is chasing a super villan while tracking the bad guy with some sort of top secret spy tracking device.  We've also seen movies where the government and the police are able to log onto a computer and track down the location of the bad guy.  In every scene, the good guys are trying to keep the bad guys on the phone long enough to be able to trace the bad guy's cell phone location.  It's always quite dramatic and the bad guy usually hangs up just microseconds before they are able to get a lock on the phone.

Believe it or not, these scenes from the movies have now become reality.  It is now possible to track people from their cell phones.  How is this possible, you might ask?  Well, a few years ago, government officials required all cell phone manufacturers to install GPS receiver chips in the cell phones that they manufacture and sell. 

They did this because so many people were calling 911 from their cell phones but they were unable to give the emergency operator their exact location.  Consequently, the 911 operators didn't know where to send the police, fire or ambulance.  This presented a huge problem for emergency dispatchers and many people didn't get help in time and died. 

If you call 911 from your home, your name, phone number, and address instantly pop up on the emergency dispatchers computer screen.  They can do this because telephone companies have enabled caller ID on all lines.  Even if you have caller ID blocked on your line, emergency dispatchers will have access to your location information when you call.

Cell phone manufacturers answered the goverment's request by installing GPS receivers in their cell phones.  This enabled emergency operators to instantly know the exact location of the people who called 911 from their cell phones.  Oftentimes people are injured and disoriented when they call 911 and are unable to give their exact location even if they know it.

Mobile phone tracking has changed the quality of service that emergency response personnel are able to give since the dispatchers instantly receive the location of the caller even if they call 911 from a cell phone.

In the movies, they always try to keep the caller on the line for a certain amount of time so that they can trace the call and locate the location of the caller.  In reality, mobile phone tracking can be done in just seconds.

One of the more popular mobile phone tracking services is the Sprint Family Locator. Sprint is just one of the big companies to recognize that mobile phone tracking is going to turn into a huge industry. They were one of the first companies to respond by making a cell phone tracker available to it's customers.

Here are some of the details about Sprints spin on this technology. There are some three free phone locator services on the market but Sprint does charge a monthly fee for the service. See the websites listed above that offer free cell phone tacking if that's what you are interested in.

• If you want to try it out, sprint will give you a 15 day free introductary trial period. During this 15 days you can do is many cell phone tracking searches as you want.
• If you decide to keep the service after the 15 day evaluation period has passed, it will cost you $5.00 a month to keep the service active.
• You can track up to four phones for your $5.00 a month. If you would like to track more than four phones, you can pay an additional fee to have more phones added to your mobile phone tracking network.
• You don't don't need a special programmable smart phone and you don't need to download and install any software on your phone in order to be able to use Sprints mobile phone tracking. Tracking works on any of their cell phones and even on Nextel cell phones.
• You can do an unlimited number of searches and you don't have to subscribe to a data plan in order to do the searches.
• You can track the cell phones in your family locator network from a smart phone if you have one. If you have a programmable smart phone, there is a little application that you can download and install on your phone that enables you to see the exact location of the people in your family locator network overlaid on a map on the screen of your cell phone.
• You can also track the cell phones in your family locator network from a computer with an Internet connection.
• Tracking anyone in your family locator network is protected by passwords so you don't have to worry about any unauthorized people tracking your your family members with their cell phones.

Here are some other cool features that Sprint has made possible with their mobile phone tracking service.

• You can choose to have the system automatically send you a text message at a particular time of the day or week with the exact location of any member in your Sprint Family locator network.  There are so many good uses for this feature that it's hard to list them all.  One good use of it would be if you wanted to make sure that someone in your network got to where they were supposed to be going on time.  You could tell the system to send you a text message at the time they were supposed to arrive. For example, if your wife was taking a road trip to visit her mother and she was supposed to arrive at 7:00 PM, you can tell the system to send you a text message with your wife's location at exactly 7:00 PM.  The Sprint family locator service will send you a text message telling you if your wife made it to her mothers house safely.  This is just one example of how great a feature this is.  As far as I know, Sprint is the only company to offer this service.
• You can easily find a lost or stolen cell phone if you subscribe to the service.  All you have to do is log onto any computer with an Internet connection and you will instantly see the location of your cell phone.

There are some basic limitations that you should know about when it comes to mobile phone tracking with Sprint.  First, in order to be able to track someone with their cell phone using the cell phone tracking service, the person must have their cell phone turned on.  Second, the person must be in a Sprint coverage area in order to be located.  I believe the system will still work if you are roaming.  From my understanding of things, you just need to be in an area that has cell phone service.  If your phone says that it has service then you will be able to be located with this mobile phone tracking service.

I don't recommend using a cell phone tracker to track the location of someone without their express written consent. Don't use this technology for the purpose of invading anyone's privacy!

This hub was created for informational and entertainment purposes alone. You and you alone will be the one that gets into trouble if you track someone without their permission and get caught.

Know the law before you engage in any cell phone tracking!