HOW MOBILE PHONE TRACKING & LOCATION WORKS 

The technology behind this new phone tracking service is surprisingly simple. All mobile phones work by being constantly in touch with the nearest phone mast to maintain good reception. You can sometimes even hear these signals as funny chirruping/clicking sounds if you place a mobile phone close to a loudspeaker or radio. What mobile tracking does is measure the distance the signal travels from the phone to the phone mast. A bit like counting how long it takes to hear a clap of thunder, after a flash of lighting, to calculate how far away a storm is, only in this case it's a lot more sophisticated as it uses more than one mast to triangulate the position. The one drawback is the phone has to be switched on, so it won't work on a lost mobile after the battery has run down!  

GSM mobile phone tracking is cheaper, but less accurate than GPS satellite tracking which has been used for many years by the road haulage industry and in car Sat Navigators. Unlike GPS, GSM won't show you what street the mobile is on. What it will do though is show you a radius of where it is likely to be. The accuracy will vary on a number of factors, such as the landscape (i.e. is it flat or hilly), how many phone masts are nearby (towns are much better than the countryside in this respect for network coverage) and even the weather will affect the results slightly, but the best accuracy is usually up to 50 to 100 metres. Obviously this is enough to find a person or stolen vehicle, but not always a lost phone.

Setting up mobile phone tracking is easy and normally only takes a few minute to complete. Registration methods vary depending on which company you choose, but they all share similar guidelines. These codes of conduct have been laid down by the phone network operators to prevent misuse, such as by paedophiles. The first is that you must provide your full name and address and a valid form of online payment (either a credit or debit card) which must match the address of the person making the application.  

You also need the permission of the person you intend to track! This is usually taken care of for you by the service provider automatically sending an SMS text message to the mobile number. This normally includes a password, or short code, which you'll need to be able to activate the phone. Once you have done that you can start tracking! Most service providers allow you to view the maps as a web page and some services also allow you to see it as a text message on your mobile.