Assisted GPS coming in 2005

Looks like Siemens will be one of the first companies to offer an Assisted Global Positioning System (A-GPS) which will work with any A-GPS capable phone on any mobile network — current systems only work with devices from specific vendors. In short, A-GPS utilizes our beloved carriers' wireless networks to communicate with satellites thereby increasing both the data transmission speeds and breadth of coverage including enclosed spaces like subway stations and tunnels. Now if we can just get more detailed coverage maps, geez. Siemens plans to offer their solution to carriers in Q3 of this year — with any luck, it will be available to us lowly consumers by the end of the year.

[Keyur Mithawala @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

The T-Mobile site coverage maps are quite obfuscated due to the color coding! The weakest zones are shown in a shade of grey, which also happens to resemble the shade used for "Good to Fair"!

My office doesn't get a pathetic t-mobile signal, so I just looked up the map and realized this dirty trick.

[Trejkaz @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

Just curious, but what's the difference between this AGPS, and the AGPS which is in existing phones like the Motorola A925?