Tracing phone calls-- what's taking so long???

Factual Questions
1

I was watching one of those cop shows on TV the other day. Someone had been kidnapped and the police and the victim’s family were gathered in the family’s living room. As the phone rang, the police admonished the family representative to keep the person on the phone as long as possible. You know, of course, what happened next. “If only the kidnapper had stayed on the phone 15 seconds longer, we’d know exactly where the call originated,” an officer said through a heavy sigh.

As long as I can remember, TV shows and movies have been using this type of scene. I’m wondering if this is just dramatic license, or has technology simply forgotten to improve telephone tracing. For goodness sake, there is a 2" x 2" caller ID box that sits next to my phone that can tell me where a call is coming from by the second ring! Why do the FBI and the police STILL need the caller to stay connected at least 2 minutes?

2

Yes, mostly given that the phone station has digital equipment.

Once upon a time the telephone system switches were massive things that had both a horizontal and a vertical components. Tracing a call required finding the switch and then looking at which position it was in and then reading the switch it pointed to and then …

Now the ID signal is sent before the phone starts to ring.

3

Its just fairly recently that telephone technology (caller ID,etc) has matured to the state it is now. I’m betting that the show you were watching is 5 - 10 yrs old or more, when the technology was not at the current state of the art.

4

Another point worth noting, the call can be traced even after the caller has hung up.
Even 5 years or so ago, calls only took a few seconds to trace.

5

As far as I can see even more recent movies / TV shows still use this dramatic tool.

Working at a cell phone company I can trace a call right down to the tower used, the compass direction from the tower used and I’m sure our techs here can even estimate distance by signal strength. So even with a cell phone we can reasonably trace where a call came from (obviously not always helpful).

Land lines I’m sure are just as good and fast. There is no delay if I want this info. I can also take a look at any cell phone in our network and determine fairly well where it is and where it’s going (by watching cell tower “hand offs” and map the direction. I’ve found my GF this way :smiley: ).