For sale: Systems that can track where cellphone users go around the globe 12 years ago
There are dozen of companies providing services in this space. Many online credit card transactions are verified these days by doing a location lookup on the SS7 network, correlating the card holder phone location with the card holder current IP address (where the transaction is coming from). Just one example: https://www.google.com/patents/US20130030934 . SS7 is still the wild west, just like the Internet was in the early 90's or telecom was in 2600Hz era. Everything and anyone on the network is trusted blindly.