Assuming he doesn't mean location but means pinging cell towers which is a proxy

The OS does that in the background. Check the 2021 Trinity College Dublin study: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf "Mobile Handset Privacy: Measuring The Data iOS and Android Send to Apple And Google"

If you don’t want to be tracked - don’t carry a cellphone. Even a GrapheneOS powered phone is going to be periodically updating its location to the nearest cell tower to keep the HLR updated.

Yes but that's quite coarse grained.

That's why you have airplane mode.