Land line vs cell phone problem?

This is what we do. Call the non emergency number for the police or fire. The can verify it's working right.

Triangulation from towers is old school. New phones with GPS built in, receive satellite signals and relay the location coordinates to the 911 center receiving the call. They are fairly accurate if you are outside, but can be distorted if you are in a building or even a car.

We have tested my dh's DROID out in the woods and it is pretty darn accurate!

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Wags Ranch Nigerians


"The Constitution says to promote the general welfare, not to provide welfare!" ~ Lt. Col Allen West

I disagree, a friend went here. Was able to call, but was not able to reply to 911 do to a horse kicking her. They were able to her find her, thanks to a land line phone.

Yea its whacked and can be frustrating. We are having a hard time getting people to put thier RR numbers on their mail boxes and I guess when they renumbered all the state roads people who didnt want to change got to keep their old numbers so its all jumbled up.

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In many areas if you use your cell phone as your primary phone you can register it with the local 911 center with your primary address. They then make sure to ask you when you call are you at home or someplace else.

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Gary in Central Ohio

Some call it GPS, but it is really not true GPS.

Guess it could be called CPS (cell positioning system). Position is trianglulated between 3 cell towers (verses 3 satellites for GPS). There is no connection or coordinates to any satellites, by default on a cell phone.

It is nearly as accurate as true GPS, but if you cannot connect to and triangulate between 3 cell towers, you are out of luck.

Some phones do have true GPS capability also, but most do not.

Nearly EVERY new cell phone has GPS in it. Only the VERY VERY basic phones dont. This is TRUE satellite based GPS.. Now most people turn this off because its a battery hog and as noted it not very good indoors, so Cell companies also use triangulation. Most large cities have Enhanced 911 or 911-2 systems and can use the GPS coordinates, some smaller/rural centers can only use triangulation even if GPS is available.


While GPS doesnt work indoors, most of the cell GPS are pretty smart that they keep the last GPS position as the current, Since its unlikley your going to go very far inside, they get your close. The GPS's work fine in cars even without an outside antenna. My smart phone has turn by turn navigation using its internal GPS. Its very accurate.

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Gary in Central Ohio

Yes they are so accurate now within something like 15 Feet. That is why so many have gotten on the kick of Geocashing, course that is using a regular hand held GPS unit. But it just shows how pin point accuracy it is today using GPS technology.

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We had to turn off our land line as it just wasnt working 75% of the time. The last time it went out,I waited 3 weeks for them to fix the line, at the end of 3 weeks, they werent sure when they could come out and ifx it. So we just cancelled the land line and only use our cell phone.

If anyone used a regular GPS unit it puts us about 30 miles south and west of where we actually are. I dont know why it is so messed up.

Luckily we live in an easy place to find and give directions to....that is why it is soi confusing as to why GPS doesnt work.

But anyway if we needed EMS quickly I guess we would just die.
Alice in Virginia

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