A small British company is preparing to launch a low-cost system for calculating the position of a mobile phone to within a few metres. The Federal Communications Commission, the US telecommunications regulator, has demanded that by October 2001, all users of mobile phones must be able to be located for emergency calls.

Cambridge Positioning Systems, a professionally managed company formed by university academics, is preparing to run a trial in Cambridge this summer. It has signed a deal with Korean company Maxon, one of the world's leading manufacturers of telecommunications equipment, which will supply handsets for the trial and for commercial roll-out of the service.