Thos OnStar commercials that I hear on my radio in my car always get to me. They feature someone having an accident or breakdown in the middle of nowhere and being able to press their OnStar button in their car to reach a friendly advisor who calls Police/Ambulance and stays on the line with them until help arrives. OnStar is featured in Chevrolet/GM and such cars. I used to have it in my Chevrolet Suburban and it was very reassuring. It uses the GPS in your car to track you.

I was thinking, while listening to this commercial while driving home in hard rain, that it would be really good if this service was offered on one's phone. I know that you can just dial 911 but I'm not sure that the 911 dispatchers can track your whereabouts.  I would be happy to pay a monthly subscription.

Laura Rooke:

I was thinking, while listening to this commercial while driving home in hard rain, that it would be really good if this service was offered on one's phone. I know that you can just dial 911 but I'm not sure that the 911 dispatchers can track your whereabouts.  I would be happy to pay a monthly subscription.

From what I understand the GPS "Always on" is information that is guarded very closely by the Wireless Carriers. From what I know it takes a court subpoena for the carriers to give GPS location information. Although it may be a good idea, I'm not sure the carriers want to get into the game of "emergency response" especially with some of the E911 issues that have come up in the past.

I'm pretty sure that the GPS works when you call 911 because on most (if not all) phone models I've worked with, you have select 'location on' and if your location is off it's still on as '911'. I believe this is also why Analog and TDMA was turned off, they were untrackable.

 And also, the point of OnStar is for the system to recognize when you've had an accident. I couldn't see OnStar going onto cell phones because thats part of their marketing is how a cell phone can fly out of your hand when you crash.

Laura Rooke:

Thos OnStar commercials that I hear on my radio in my car always get to me. They feature someone having an accident or breakdown in the middle of nowhere and being able to press their OnStar button in their car to reach a friendly advisor who calls Police/Ambulance and stays on the line with them until help arrives. OnStar is featured in Chevrolet/GM and such cars. I used to have it in my Chevrolet Suburban and it was very reassuring. It uses the GPS in your car to track you.

I was thinking, while listening to this commercial while driving home in hard rain, that it would be really good if this service was offered on one's phone. I know that you can just dial 911 but I'm not sure that the 911 dispatchers can track your whereabouts.  I would be happy to pay a monthly subscription.

Doug Heidebrink:

Here in th US the 911 system can find your location of your phone so long as you haven't deactivated it. With the sync system in my Ford Taurus I have like 15 seconds to answer no after an airbag deployment our it will use my cell phone to call 911. I can't imagine how we can be safer without having an ambulance following us around.

Do you have to pay a monthly fee for this service?

Laura Rooke:

Doug Heidebrink:

Here in th US the 911 system can find your location of your phone so long as you haven't deactivated it. With the sync system in my Ford Taurus I have like 15 seconds to answer no after an airbag deployment our it will use my cell phone to call 911. I can't imagine how we can be safer without having an ambulance following us around.

 

Do you have to pay a monthly fee for this service?