I have recently started at a company who issued me with a blackberry 7100t . Shortly after starting I was told they can track your location..... is this true? If it is I wont be too happy about working for a firm who dont trust their staff.

I would appreciate some advice.

Thanks

It is possible to triangulate a handset with respoect to a couple of cell towers but I don't think your company has that kind of hookup. You think they put a GPS transmitter in the phone or other company owned item?

well the phone was in a brand new box so i doubt its the phone. The only other items is the laptop. Its just a few things that have been said recently that makes me think its true.......... personally I thought that the police struggled to locate mobile phones, never mind a small company.

Can you be tracked? It is possible I have seen some stuff out there for that. Is it fiscally practicle? Not really unless you are a route driver or something and your location could help make a sale or something. IE: they saw you were at 123 main street and a customer from 150 main street called and want's something asap, then, they could know you are close and get you over there but that has value to the company, spying on employees is expensive just for spying purposes.
I'm guessing it is like people thinking that companies read all their emails. We don't read everyones email but all emails are logged and if we needed to we could get the information but it isn't readily availalbe or read.

Phone companies, such as bell, offer services which allow you to "track" the approximate location of a handset via the web. Not sure what this technology is or how it works, but it is out there and accessible.

As previously stated its expensive IF they can do it. I was thinking that the 7520 was the only BB that could be tracked down for location with GPS...but anything is possible if the company wants to spend the money. If the BB is for work purposes, then you shouldnt have to worry while your working unless your playing golf on the clock. Otherwise if beyond work and worried about it, just turn the BB off or leave it at home.

**edit**

One other thought....its possible if they wanted to spend the money to keep that close of tabs on their employees but its also possible that its more rumor to put a scare into their employees to keep them on the straight and narrow.

I think your refering to the GPS that is inside all new Nextel phones. All those phones can be traced. I've never used it myself, but it is designed for 911 use so if they get a call they can use there GPS software to find you in an emergency. I doubt your company has the GPS software.

There are ways to track any cell phone, and if it has a GPS built it is just that much easier.

There is no inherent GPS capability in the 7100t.

There are some other "low tech" possibilities, however. For example, your boss can view your cell invoice (if paid for by your company). By keeping track of your schedule, and comparing this to your bill, it's possible to determine where you were and when, versus where you should have been at a specific time. Obviously this would necessitate some travel on your part...and it would depend on how detailed your invoice is. If you work, live and travel within the same small area, then little could be determined. But I have heard of some employers using this data to track employees...specifically those who commute or travel frequently. If you live and work out of different towns and you're answering your phone or making calls in the wrong place at the wrong time, then you're beat.

But as mentioned above, GPS technology is still too expensive.

I used to work for a technical company which provides wireless laptops to their field employees. The company had requested pricing on GPS, but it was priced at a minimum of $500CAD per unit, not including licensing fees, installation, etc. This company had 2000+ units...which would make such a project cost prohibitive.

The local ambulance service uses Nextels to track all of the units 24/7 so I don't think it costs too much. Trust me they are to cheap to spend allot of money to track the ambulances.

^^ But that's Nextel. The GSM/GPRS 7100t does not have built in GPS.

Using GPS in a laptop is expensive...

I was under the impression that all phones currently sold in the US are required to have some form of technology that displays your location when you dial 911. Not sure if that means a GPS or not, but still trackable.

BlackBerry 7520/7100i (both with Nextel) have GPS capabilities where employers could easily have an app that upgates your location in almost-realtime. It does not cost a lot anymore.

I know that UMTS/HSPDA, CDMA, iDEN networks have A-GPS. I am not sure about GPRS/EDGE

I believe the above statement......look how much they pay the on the scene medical personnel! I know one thing thoes people should get paid more!

What I do not understand is why all the concern about whether you can be tracked or not. If you are doing what you are suppossed to then you have no worries or concerns, if you are not, put simply then stop because you are doing it on company time. If it is not on company time then you leave the device at home or in the office and use you own personal one if you have become such a bb addict that you cannot live without it. If you have to have the device on you 24/7 then you are either paid enough for that or to put it simply you are SOL and that is it, period end of story.

Wirelessly posted (7290: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry7290/4.0.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

I think it would be difficult to track A 7100T , seeing how it is A GSM/gprs/GPRS/EGPRS signal , you could pickup A CellPhone/GPS jammer .

This would block signals from being sent and you would still have access to your device.

I remember one day I thought I was being followed from one of my phones .

I put the thing in the MicroWave and hit start . ;)

iDEN has true GPS capability. Unfortunately, given the weakness of GPS signal, this technology will only work when the device has a clear view of the sky. Indoor use inhibits its effectiveness.

CDMA networks use Assisted GPS, which uses a combination of tower triangulation and GPS receiver.

GPRS/GSM/EDGE networks have no inherent location technology. However, for e911 purposes, the data relating to the tower and sector handling the call is presented to 911 services; thus giving an approximate location of the caller.

i believe it is possible to track some kind of "approximate" location (not as accurate as GPS) through cell tower triangulation because i demoed a program for my 8700c some time ago, some kind of mapping program (i forget the name) and one of the options was to display my location. Funny thing is it didn't even prompt me to enter my location, but when i clicked on the link........it would give me some kind of approximate longitude and latitude.............and i could plot it on google maps. crap, i forget the name of the program......but i think it was able to do that based on some kind of cell phone triangulation and i'm not sure how accurate it is, certainly not as accurate as gps tracking, but i'm sure it is accurate to a few square miles radius