Investigating the accuracy of base station information for estimating cellphone location

An important feature of cellphones is that their location can be determined. As long as the cellphone is powered on, the location of the cellphone can always be traced to at least the cell from which it is receiving, or last received, signal from the cellular network. Such, network based, methods of estimating the location of a cellphone is useful in cases where the cellphone user is unable or unwilling to reveal his or her location. This paper investigates the accuracy of using base station information for estimating the location of cellphones. Through quantitative data analysis large variations between the best and worst accuracy of recorded base station locations are exposed. Thus, depending on the requirements, base station locations may or may not be accurate enough for a particular application.