Why is my Google Maps location all over the place?

[AC Question]

why is Google Maps location all over the place

my wife lives in Kenya I am here in the US when we talk her google map shows her location in three different areas during a two minute conversation each time I touch off on your map it shows her in a new location miles apart but yet she is in one place at home because I know I am talking to her on her house phone why does the map location shows she is in 3 different places during a two minute time span of a conversation

 

[anon(5600632)]

Re: why is Google Maps location all over the place

Geolocating is an iterative process; the first read might be further from the actual than subsequent readings. It also depends on what signal its using to find her phone: it uses cell signal, wifi and/or GPS. Depending on whether her phone is set to transmit location data from 1, 2 or all three of those and which ones, results can vary a bit.

 

[Rukbat]

Re: why is Google Maps location all over the place

If it's her house phone (a wired phone), the "location" is the one the telephone company says is the location, and they can put in any location. (If it's VoIP, it's the location at which her ISP enters the internet backbone - again, that can shift.) There's no GPS on a landline phone. There's no actual location data at all on a landline phone, just numbers entered by some person when the account was opened. (Even the name on any account is subject to human error. My wife's old Verizon mobile account had someone else's name on it - but her number and address. People are about as far from perfect as it gets.)