Nextel Privacy

MarkF wrote:
> It actually takes 3 towers...that's why it's called "TRIangulation"
> ;-)

Nope. With ordinary radio triangulation, it takes 2 receivers with highly
directional antennas. If on a map you draw a line indicating the direction
where a transmitter is coming from, where the lines intersect shows where
the transmitter is. (Of course, should the transmitter be located directly
on the same line that connects where the receivers are, this ain't gonna
work.) The problem is that as DevilsPGD posted, a cell tower typically has 6
antennas (meaning none is highly directional), and thus can only give a
general idea as to the direction the phone is located, with a significant
margin of error. Thus even with 4 cell towers, it may not be possible to
pinpoint a phone with a high degree of accuracy; certainly nothing on the
level of GPS.
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› See More: Nextel Privacy

As those guys are going on and on about how many towers it takes to
track you.... Yes GPS does mean that they can track you. But more
than likely they will choose not to track you. It is $15 a month
extra for the feature and that is taking into account that they are
already spending at least $40 now. Nextel does offer a non-GPS
version for the older phones like the i1000 like the other guys are
arguing about. Same price only it is not as accurate as GPS(could be
up to 15 miles off). Your i730 will use this when it can not see a
GPS satellite(like in your house).


"MAT" <marcoatRM_SPAM@DEL_SPAmsnotmail.com> wrote in message news:<YfWdnQqG7aABxeLdRVn-sw@comcast.com>...
> I have a i1000plus provided by my employer which has recently broken. I'm
> soon to get a replacement i730. I thought I would do a little pre-research
> on the phone and see that it has the GPS capability, this got me thinking
> about what information the account administrator has access to. Can the
> person in charge of our Nextel account casually find coordinates on my
> phone? Creepy! In hindsight, what are the other privacy issues involved
> with being under a managed plan? I've never had a cell phone except Nextels
> from work so I dont know what kind of info is on a billing statement. I'm
> sure they see incoming and out going calls but how about web-sent text
> messages? How about direct-connect? Do they see every direct connect on
> the statement? Yikes, the paranoia bug!