Secret Study: Most Cell Phone Users Are Homebodies

New York, NY (AHN) - A university study is raising eyebrows after researchers disclosed they secretly tracked the movement of 100,000 cell phone users outside the United States.

Researchers at Northeastern University for six months sifted through data from cell phone towers allowing them to track the movement of mobile phone users in what they only describe as an "industrialized country."

Such research, which included the cooperation from an unknown company, would be illegal in the U.S., an FCC spokesman told the AP.

The study, to be published Thursday in Nature, found most people stick close to home, despite the freedom which comes from a mobile phone.

Researchers said more than eight-in-ten people stay within a 37-mile radius with nearly half of cell phone users they tracked keeping within a six mile circle.