WebTrack My Cell Phone?

April 16, 2005 12:47 AM

WebTracking My Cell Phone?

I want to be able to track my cell phone and display my location on my website. I have the Virgin Mobile Kyocera K7 Rave phone with GPS E911 enabled (which is apparently what you need to track right?).

How can I track my phone? What software do I need? I've seen some free service out there for Nextel's, is there something equivalent for my phone or am I out of luck?

posted by freudianslipper to Technology (3 answers total)

Here's the problem: The phone knows where it is, and Virgin have the ability to read that data remotely for E911, but I don't think you do. The Nextel thing uses a Java application installed on the phone to read and transmit the location data, but the K7 doesn't have Java. The only way to do it would if Virgin ever offer a service to track your phone from the web.
posted by cillit bang at 6:22 AM on April 16, 2005

Virgin is pretty much rebranded Sprint service. Sprint does not currently have a system in place to allow tracking except in the case of E911 calls. In the use right now the only carrier that does is Nextel, and that relies on a user plane location fix rather than a control plane fix. That means the phone has to initiate the location fix through a java application on the phone. Unless you implement some sort of j2me server application (say goodbye to your battery life if you do) you won't be able to make a location request that originates from a remote machine.

In Japan, Korea, and Canada (and probably some other countries) this technology exists and these types of services are available.
posted by aspo at 11:08 AM on April 16, 2005

Actually, Sprint does have something like this available now (ostensibly) for small businesses. It integrates with Microsoft MapPoint Location Server.

Available Here.

IMPORTANT NOTE: To use these providers with MapPoint Location Server, you must contact Sprint to add location to your existing service agreement and have your phones provisioned. You can contact Sprint at [e-mail].
posted by chota at 9:40 PM on April 16, 2005