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The attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania showed how crucial time and communications can be in a crisis.
Emergency personnel immediately can track 911 calls made from land-line telephones, but if a call is made from a wireless phone, the location often is too broad to be helpful. That's about to change.
"The only thing 911 can do is pinpoint a customer's location to the nearest cell tower," said Ryan Marler, general sales manager for Cellular 4 Less in Independence. "That can be a range of five to eight miles."
Clearly, that level of precision isn't good enough, especially at a time when 30 percent to 50 percent of all 911 calls are made from wireless phones, according to the Federal Communications Commission. In 1996, the federal government mandated that manufacturers equip wireless phones with location-finding technology, a service known as Extended 911, or e911.
On Oct. 1, Westwood-based Sprint PCS met a federally, mandated deadline that required wireless providers to sell phones with global positioning system technology. Eventually, those phones and an updated technology infrastructure will allow emergency personnel to pinpoint calls.
GPS advances already are revolutionizing the communications industry, said Brad Knox, vice president of Autco Inc....