What comes through for me when Jennifer's cell phone pings are discussed is they seem to look at one ping from one tower, then they look at the next ping from the next tower, and so on. I believe there were 8 or ten pings starting around 10:00 pm, IIRC.
Each individual tower has probably around a 20-mile radius. Jennifer's vehicle could have been anywhere in that radius. Then, if you move to another tower where another ping originated, again Jennifer's vehicle could have been anywhere in that radius.
What they can do, however, is triangulate those pings and it gives a much more accurate location. Most of those towers, especially in huge cities like Orlando, have sub-towers. Jennifer's phone could have pinged two or three sub-towers contained in the same tower. When they triangulate they can tell within a mile or so where the cell phone is. It's solid--not as good as GPS tracking but still good.
Apparently, there was a tower down in her area that night. That should not have been a problem because the phone company can tell exactly what tower went down, then know exactly when that tower went down, and they know the tower those calls would have been routed to. It's easy for them. They have to accurately keep track of that stuff for billing purposes.
And another important thing about that last ping--they said it was both phones. Suddenly they both pinged off the same tower and never made a sound again. Law enforcement or even the Kesses have never officially released that location. There are rumors but they could be incorrect.
