GPS extension?

[William W. Plummer]

Satellites are great for coverage but they are expensive to maintain (>
$1B per year). Would it be possible to use all those cell phone towers
as GPS extensions, providing wide area coverage and increased accuracy?
The satellite constellation would serve as the "backbone" which
provides accurate time and position information to all those cell phone
towers, but within range, the cell phone towers will provide much more
accurate location info.

[Mike Rapoport]

Using GPS to navigate airplanes in the US is only incedental to its actual
purpose.

Mike
MU-2

"William W. Plummer" > wrote in message
news:ov34d.653$He1.339@attbi_s01...
> Satellites are great for coverage but they are expensive to maintain (>
> $1B per year). Would it be possible to use all those cell phone towers as
> GPS extensions, providing wide area coverage and increased accuracy? The
> satellite constellation would serve as the "backbone" which provides
> accurate time and position information to all those cell phone towers, but
> within range, the cell phone towers will provide much more accurate
> location info.

[Cockpit Colin]

"William W. Plummer" > wrote in message
news:ov34d.653$He1.339@attbi_s01...
> Would it be possible to use all those cell phone towers
> as GPS extensions, providing wide area coverage and increased accuracy?

No.

[Andrew Sarangan]

And you would be satisfied if the GPS only worked where there is cell phone
coverage?


"William W. Plummer" > wrote in news:ov34d.653
$He1.339@attbi_s01:

> Satellites are great for coverage but they are expensive to maintain (>
> $1B per year). Would it be possible to use all those cell phone towers
> as GPS extensions, providing wide area coverage and increased accuracy?
> The satellite constellation would serve as the "backbone" which
> provides accurate time and position information to all those cell phone
> towers, but within range, the cell phone towers will provide much more
> accurate location info.

[BTIZ]

I get 30 miles out of town and my cell phone is toast...

BT

"Andrew Sarangan" > wrote in message
58...
> And you would be satisfied if the GPS only worked where there is cell
phone
> coverage?
>
>
> "William W. Plummer" > wrote in
news:ov34d.653
> $He1.339@attbi_s01:
>
> > Satellites are great for coverage but they are expensive to maintain (>
> > $1B per year). Would it be possible to use all those cell phone towers
> > as GPS extensions, providing wide area coverage and increased accuracy?
> > The satellite constellation would serve as the "backbone" which
> > provides accurate time and position information to all those cell phone
> > towers, but within range, the cell phone towers will provide much more
> > accurate location info.
>

[BTIZ]

the west is still wild...

BT

"BTIZ" > wrote in message news:ly84d.106328
> I get 30 miles out of town and my cell phone is toast...
>
> BT
>
> "Andrew Sarangan" > wrote in message
> 58...
> > And you would be satisfied if the GPS only worked where there is cell
> phone
> > coverage?
> >
> >
> > "William W. Plummer" > wrote in
> news:ov34d.653
> > $He1.339@attbi_s01:
> >
> > > Satellites are great for coverage but they are expensive to maintain
(>
> > > $1B per year). Would it be possible to use all those cell phone
towers
> > > as GPS extensions, providing wide area coverage and increased
accuracy?
> > > The satellite constellation would serve as the "backbone" which
> > > provides accurate time and position information to all those cell
phone
> > > towers, but within range, the cell phone towers will provide much more
> > > accurate location info.
> >
>
>

[Ron Natalie]

"BTIZ" > wrote in message news:ly84d.106328$yh.29283@fed1read05...
> I get 30 miles out of town and my cell phone is toast...
>
....on the ground.

Get a few thousand feet of altitude on things and the coverage gets MUCH better.

[Steve Robertson]

We've already got something like that. It's called Loran.

Best,

Steve Robertson

"William W. Plummer" wrote:

> Satellites are great for coverage but they are expensive to maintain (>
> $1B per year). Would it be possible to use all those cell phone towers
> as GPS extensions, providing wide area coverage and increased accuracy?
> The satellite constellation would serve as the "backbone" which
> provides accurate time and position information to all those cell phone
> towers, but within range, the cell phone towers will provide much more
> accurate location info.

[C Kingsbury]

"Mike Rapoport" > wrote in message et>...

> Using GPS to navigate airplanes in the US is only incedental to its actual
> purpose.
>
> Mike
> MU-2

Well, as we move towards GPS/WAAS as the "primary source" for aerial
navigation the urgency of providing redundancy certainly increases.

Right now there's talk about maintaining a skeleton network of VORs,
or keeping the old LORAN chains going, but the idea of cellphone
towers is kind of fascinating. Here you have a bunch of radio
transmitters in highly-fixed geographical locations that squawk a
bunch of info out into the ether (hmm, sounds like a GPS satellite to
me), that are all maintained by private funds. Plus, you've got at
least 4 completely-separate networks (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Nextel)
going at any one point in time.

No, they're not everywhere, but odds are that anywhere you have a
good-sized airport, you have population, and that means you have
towers.

If you add precise timing and positional codes to the signal these
towers send out, you could conceivably have a highly GPS-like system
that provides some kind of backup. Reception up in the flight levels
might suck but it ought to improve as you approach the ground, which
is where you really need it anyway. And hell, if you wire it all up
right, couldn't you have a sort of break-through that allows ATC to
transmit and receive "phone calls" in case of a radio failure? Two
redundancies for the price of one! And best of all, by piggybacking on
an existing infrastructure, you save a boatload of money.

OK, I'll admit that the difference between principle and practice in
this sort of thing is the difference between being a member of the
Angelina Jolie Fan Club and staying over at her place for breakfast.
But that doesn't mean speculating still isn't fun...

Best,
-cwk.

[Paul Sengupta]

"C Kingsbury" > wrote in message
om...
> the idea of cellphone
> towers is kind of fascinating. Here you have a bunch of radio
> transmitters in highly-fixed geographical locations that squawk a
> bunch of info out into the ether (hmm, sounds like a GPS satellite to
> me),
> If you add precise timing and positional codes to the signal these
> towers send out, you could conceivably have a highly GPS-like system
> that provides some kind of backup.

CDMA operates on precise timing.

However, they usually get their precise timing from GPS receivers...

Paul