10ofRods
Verified Anthropologist
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2019
- Messages
- 15,555
- Reaction score
- 194,855
So you’re saying all of those antennas would provide cell service/pings? Even the antenna at Kentucky fried chicken?
But if we are counting antennas too, my non-urban college town has 277 towers, and 265 antennas for a total of 542. And Moscow only has 126? Seems like they are spread a bit thinner than most.
Well, the antennae at KFC has to hook up to something, right? If I'm using my cellphone at KFC, sure it will hit that antennae and then the relevant nearby cell towers? And if I'm not an authorized user of the KFC antennae, won't my phone still contact it? I mean, that's what usually happens when I drive around and my phone picks up all these random local "hot spots."
What else would a cell antennae before except to somehow hook a person's phone up to the vast cellular network. Of course, I have no clue to what extent various towers send data on to other towers.
If I'm sitting in McDonald's and my phone is connected to cellular through their system, I'm pretty sure that is information that can be traced. In missing person's cases, it has been helpful to know their last known ping location, especially if it's connected to a particular place.
From what I'm reading, all cell phone towers are considered antennae and all cellular antennae interact with the larger (panel) antennae that are contained in the towers.
Moscow is only 7 square miles. It's tiny. I don't know the size of your town, but my town is about 30 square miles and has 146 towers and antennae - so about the same as tiny Moscow. Neither Moscow or my town is heavily urban in the sense of having tons and tons of businesses, we're both mostly residential places (although Moscow has the university which has its own antennae - surely they are in use? so pings hit them?)
I do know that one's phone assesses which nearby location is 1) available to it and 2) is strong. So my own phone defaults to my carrier and for that carrier, there are only about 30 towers in town. It's plenty. And it's way enough for "triangulation."
GPS is more specific and pretty much impossible to turn off on most phones (unless the whole phone is off).