
You aren't the first one to ask that question for exactly the same reason
If you can suffer through a little off-topic explanation...
Truth is, IMHO, the pings provide us with an incredible wealth of information, however...
1) Pings shouldn't be confused w/ GPS coordinates (exact longitude & latitude of the handheld device/phone) which so many people are familiar with now that they have GPS systems (e.g. Tom-Tom, NeverLost, etc.) in their cars. With GPS coordinates (which many phones can be enabled to provide now for a monthly service fee) Tony would be in a position to make the claim that he did. With pings...not so much.
2) Pings only provide information when the phone is sending/receiving a transmission. So...when the phone is not in use...it isn't providing pings. We did some extensive work to determine periods when Casey's phone wasn't in use before the body was found...thinking long periods of inactivity might lead us to the body. You may have read about this lately as it was also a means of determining when/if Casey slept...and where.
3) Pings only provide a general area. For example on one side of the cell tower...within a range of a mile or two from the tower...and owing to changing cell volume throughout the day...2 or 3 towers may carry the call from the exact same location on any given day. This is the case @ G&C's and Suburban....as well as @ Tony's apt. There are 3 towers that form a triangle around both of these areas betwixt which the cell pings bounce.
We made a huge advance when JWG deciphered the directional antenna codes in the AT&T docs. This took us
from having to consider each ping coming from anywhere 360 degrees around a tower
to a specific 120 degree arc in a predetermined direction (e.g. North to Southeast) of the tower. :thumb: (BTW...he was waaaay too modest regarding his role in the explanation he provided earlier - but then, I'm not too surprised 'bout that

)
Hope that helps.