Cellular Phone Tracking Essay, Research Paper

On April 9th of last year, Ellen Kirk from San Jose, California had a tragic car accident, slamming her into tree. Bleeding profusely, she reached into here purse, grabbed her cell phone, and called 911 and tried to give her location as best as possible. She waited, and waited, and waited. And when the ambulances arrived, a full hour has passed. When the E.M.T’s found her, she was already dead.

The example I just gave is not an isolated incident, there are countless more, such as Terry Pedigo in Houston, Texas who had a heart attack at a local park. And in all of these cases, emergency services were not able to trace the location of the cell phone, and get to the victim in time.

In the United States, according to the Federal Communications Commission or FCC, there are over 66 million cellular phone users. And we are aware of the benefits of cellular phones, especially in accidents to contact emergency services, such as 911. And these wireless phone calls make up over 40 % of total calls placed to 911 emergency centers, a total of over 98,000 per day.

In most circumstances, they are able to locate the victim. However, in all too many situations, the emergency crew spends valuable time searching for their caller in distress — which can lead to more serious injury or even death.

Currently in the United States, there are no laws which require cellular phone companies to implement this already existing technology into their services.

In Houston, Texas the technology to determine the position of a phone call placed from a Cellular phone is already in place on the phone towers, however none of the wireless telephone providers are actually maintaining and operating it. And Motorola is the first to actually announce that they will equip their phones with technology to be able to do this.

And the cost of this — a minuscule 10 dollars for the digital signal processing chip. Much of this program of cellular phone location is done through the $10 Billion dollar satellite of the US Department of Defense’s Global Positioning System. With this, the location of a phone call placed by a wireless phone can be determined to less than five meters. And many other additional possibilities are being developed by companies such as SnapTrack and Cell-Loc, which are leaders in this industry. And of all of this is at a minimum cost to the consumer, while giving them maximum benefits for providing to their safety.

The Technology is here, and so is the desperate need for this. There is no reason why someone should die because of a problem that can be easily fixed. Mandate these programs to Cellular phone providers, and you might just save a life or two. Vote for the resolution concerning