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solution to set up a geo-fence surrounding the hotel, tracking all wireless activity within its borders. Dispatchers could have analyzed the data in near real time, identifying the attackers and innocent bystanders and relaying that information to SWAT teams approaching from the perimeter. Agents could have estimated the specific locations of the terrorists inside the hotel to within tens of meters and, given a map of the building, been able to identify the areas of the building they were in. Dispatchers could have also tracked the movements of their own agents, making sure the response was coordinated and that every exit was being covered -- all while maintaining secrecy.

LI solutions with location capabilities can also revolutionize border control. As the global economic meltdown has strained international borders, national governments are seeking more reliable methods of tracking people entering a country illegally. Border patrol agencies can simply set up a geo-fence along the border and track electronic communication as it flows into or out of the area. As people, i.e. drug and gun smugglers, increasingly use wireless communication to coordinate their runs, highly accurate LI location solutions can be used to pinpoint the locations of those handsets, giving law enforcement agencies a more complete picture of activity in the area.

As you can see in these real-life scenarios, access to highly-accurate location information can help law enforcement agencies work within the law to quickly take control of a situation before it gets out of hand or stop the criminal activity as it is happening. Instead of relying exclusively on interpreting intercepted data and voice communications, agents can reliably plot the location of suspects and use this new information to put available evidence within its proper context -- turning intercepted information into actionable intelligence.

they could have simply turned off that capability. Even if GPS was available, it is not reliable in dense urban and indoor environments due to line of sight challenges.

Other location technologies like Cell-ID -- a solution that uses crude location from cell towers to determine approximate position of a handset -- can determine location to within several hundred meters or a few city blocks. However, the information wouldn't have been new or useful to Mumbai police since the gunfire and explosions in the hotels had already given away the terrorists' general locations. More accurate information would have been valuable to responding personnel, allowing them to place the gunmen in, say, the east wing or in a specific ballroom.

One such method that can provide the appropriate level of accuracy is pattern matching location technology, a technology that uses the principle that every location has a unique radio frequency signature. Like a fingerprint's pattern of lines and swirls, a location can be identified by a unique set of values, including measurements of neighboring cell signal strengths, time delays, and other network parameters. Unlike GPS, pattern