Orange offers 'GPS-beating' location tracking

'Where did I leave that vending machine?'

Mobile operator Orange has unveiled a GSM-based tracking service which it claims is cheaper and easier to use than GPS technology.

Orange predicts that by next year more than 40,000 devices – such as train carriages, machinery and even vending machines - will be tracked using its Cell ID service.

Cell ID gives the developers of location services details of the Orange GSM network.

This data - combined with their own location application and other data - will allow location service providers to offer much more accurate location based services, Orange said.

Melissa Jenkins, M2M product manager at Orange Business Solutions, said Cell ID doesn’t use special antennas or need to be able to see the sky like a GPS system does.

“If you are using a Cell ID-type of solution you can chuck it in anywhere and as long as you can get GSM you can get a location. You don’t have the complexity of deploying it – you can use it in much lower cost solutions,” Jenkins said.

The system helps track devices by their location in relation to mobile phone cells.

“You can see the device is 500 metres from cell A and 800 metres from cell B and work out approximately where it is,” Jenkins explained.

Electronic Tracking Systems (ETS), which manufactures battery-powered security tracking devices under the mtrack brand, is one of the first to pilot the product.

ETS said Cell ID allows it to track assets to within 550 metres, whereas previously the average distance was around 4.5km and could range up to 11km.