Does Cingular have GPS-like feature like Verizon's VZNavigator?

At 08 May 2007 05:05:40 +0000 John Navas wrote:

> I've been able to do that for quite a long time with Google Maps for
> Mobile even on my relatively old Motorola V551. On my new RAZR V3xx
> it's even faster, easier, and sharper. I don't see any "leap frog" by
> Microsoft.

Since he was discussing using GMM on his Blackjack, I assume he's
referring to the Windows Mobile versions of Google Maps and "Windows
Live." GMM for WM is superior to the Java version- in addition to GPS
support, it also allows you to use the phone's contacts as start and/or
end points.

WLM is better still- it also allows installation to a storage card, and
overlays street names on the aerial maps.

Both almost replace a "real" car navigation system- the only thing they
really lack is voice guidance.

---

› See More: Does Cingular have GPS-like feature like Verizon's VZNavigator?

It is alleged that unfrostedpoptart claimed:

> I don't see anything like this on the Cingular web site. Do they have
> something like this, or will soon? It would be very hard to get my
> family to give up on that feature.

I doubt it. It requires an actual GPS receiver to work, cellular
triangulation is only an approximate with a wide margin of error.

What Verizon is doing is taking a built-in feature of the phone (the
GPS locator on modern CDMA phones, used for Emergency Call "here I am"
location ability) and selling you back at an additional monthly charge
a data service.

Get one or more real GPS units. They come in various styles from
auto-only to car/pedestrian models. Yes, the up-front cost may be
steep, especially if you're getting three of them, but there is no
monthly service fee.

If you or anyone in your family has a PDA or Smartphone with BlueTooth,
you can get a TomTom or Garmin setup that consists of software (WinMob
or Palm) for the PDA and a BT GPS receiver that you can stick in your
pocket.

--
Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
The from userid is killfiled Send personal mail to gordol

"Do you have blacks, too?" - George W. Bush, to Brazilian Pres.
Fernando Cardoso, Nov 8, 2001

It is alleged that John Navas claimed:

> Truthiness:
>
> >Where do you live that you think Cingular's coverage will be better?
> >There is almost no place in the entire U.S. where Cingular coverage is
> >better.
>
> Truth: AT&T/Cingular has better coverage than Verizon in a great many
> places.

Truth: Verizon has better coverage than Cingular in a great many
places.

Truth: Cingular and Verizon have identical coverage in a great many
places.

I've been in places where my Cingular phone has better signal quality
than my brother's Verizon phone, and visa versa. AS well as where
we've had identical coverage quality, both good and bad.

--
Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
The from userid is killfiled Send personal mail to gordol

"I think the American people- I hope the American- I don't think, let
me- I hope the American people trust me." - George W. Bush, Dec. 18,
2002

[email protected] wrote:
> A message mentioned showing cars in parking lots. You mentioned using
> Google Maps for Mobile. I mentioned using Google Earth, which can show
> cars in parking lots.

Search for 52.06924359281394,4.313924955463762 in Google Earth for a nice
parking lot photo.

--
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

Jeffrey Kaplan wrote:
> It is alleged that unfrostedpoptart claimed:
>
>> I don't see anything like this on the Cingular web site. Do they have
>> something like this, or will soon? It would be very hard to get my
>> family to give up on that feature.
>
> I doubt it. It requires an actual GPS receiver to work, cellular
> triangulation is only an approximate with a wide margin of error.
>
> What Verizon is doing is taking a built-in feature of the phone (the
> GPS locator on modern CDMA phones, used for Emergency Call "here I am"
> location ability) and selling you back at an additional monthly charge
> a data service.

Yeah, that's what they're doing if you're using the VZNavigator feature.
The other use of the more accurate positioning system is to sell
location based services to business in order to track their employee's
locations. Disney is using it so parents can track their children.

Maybe it's actually a good thing that the E-911 system used by Cingular
and T-Mobile isn't as accurate! I'm surprised that no one has come up
with a way to disable the tracking system. I can tell you that there are
employees that are very unhappy over what they view as spying by their
employers.


[Copied to alt.cellular.attws. Please post all alt.cellular.cingular
posts to alt.cellular.attws as well. The Cingular name is going away,
and alt.cellular.attws is the proper venue for posts regarding AT&T's
Wireless Service.]

"John Navas" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Sat, 5 May 2007 15:30:29 -0500, "Thurman" <[email protected]>
> wrote in <GP5%[email protected]>:
>
>><[email protected]> wrote in message
>>news:[email protected]...
>>>> ..., but could display the aerial in enough detail to
>>>> count the cars in the parking lot.
> I've been able to do that for quite a long time with Google Maps for
> Mobile even on my relatively old Motorola V551. On my new RAZR V3xx
> it's even faster, easier, and sharper. I don't see any "leap frog" by
> Microsoft.

Possibly myopia, caused by tunnel vision.

"Need to control, criticize others, is usually caused by a lack of control
over their own lives"
--Dr. Laura Schlesenger, 1996

>Search for 52.06924359281394,4.313924955463762 in Google Earth for a nice
>parking lot photo.
Zoom in on the bicyclist (Eye alt 100 ft, say) and save the image.
Now try shrinking that image to 320x320 and you can just barely tell it's
a bicycle, or clip (unshrunk) to that size and you'll get the bicyclist
and parts of three cars. That size might be barely useful, but go to a
quarter the size (160x160) and, IMHO, a single, or even several, such
pictures are useless for anything but "lookee gee whiz!". It's not
a question of clever software - it's a question of a little screen.

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] wrote:

> [email protected] wrote:
> > A message mentioned showing cars in parking lots. You mentioned using
> > Google Maps for Mobile. I mentioned using Google Earth, which can show
> > cars in parking lots.
>
> Search for 52.06924359281394,4.313924955463762 in Google Earth for a nice
> parking lot photo.

Yes, cars in parking lots from 2 years ago.

--
To reply by email, remove the word "space"

On May 8, 11:07 am, Jeffrey Kaplan <[email protected]> wrote:

> What Verizon is doing is taking a built-in feature of the phone (the
> GPS locator on modern CDMA phones, used for Emergency Call "here I am"
> location ability) and selling you back at an additional monthly charge
> a data service.

I figured it was something like this. In any case, it works great.
Cingular/ATT must have the same
emergency locater hardware, so I assume it's just a matter of them
putting the software on the phones and in their network.

> Get one or more real GPS units. They come in various styles from
> auto-only to car/pedestrian models. Yes, the up-front cost may be
> steep, especially if you're getting three of them, but there is no
> monthly service fee.

This won't work. Beside being a very high cost for multiple GPS units
with the features of VZNavigator, the main users would be my wife and
daughter, who are not going to carry around a separate GPS. I could
mount the units in their cars, but that's more work and expense and
clutter in the car.

David

unfrostedpoptart wrote:
> On May 8, 11:07 am, Jeffrey Kaplan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> What Verizon is doing is taking a built-in feature of the phone (the
>> GPS locator on modern CDMA phones, used for Emergency Call "here I am"
>> location ability) and selling you back at an additional monthly charge
>> a data service.
>
> I figured it was something like this. In any case, it works great.
> Cingular/ATT must have the same
> emergency locater hardware, so I assume it's just a matter of them
> putting the software on the phones and in their network.

Cingular uses a system for emergency locating that is completely
different than the system Verizon and Sprint use. The advantage to
Cingular is that there system works with any GSM phone, and no GPS
hardware is necessary inside the handset. The disadvantage is that the
system is not accurate enough for many location based services, so they
don't offer such services.

Many GSM carriers in Europe are beginning to offer solutions similar to
what the U.S. CDMA operators now offer. Cingular has made noises about
rolling out a system like the European carriers.

Note that we're talking about two different services. One is a GPS-only
service, which you could have on any phone that has a GPS receiver, but
that doesn't report back the phone location to the network. The Verizon
and Sprint systems are hybrid systems, that use both the GPS and the
phone towers to pinpoint the location, and work even when there is no
line of sight to the satellites.

[email protected] wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
>> A message mentioned showing cars in parking lots. You mentioned using
>> Google Maps for Mobile. I mentioned using Google Earth, which can show
>> cars in parking lots.
>
> Search for 52.06924359281394,4.313924955463762 in Google Earth for a nice
> parking lot photo.

I guess that saves space, but you need tires with a lot of grip.

It is alleged that unfrostedpoptart claimed:

> > What Verizon is doing is taking a built-in feature of the phone (the
> > GPS locator on modern CDMA phones, used for Emergency Call "here I am"
> > location ability) and selling you back at an additional monthly charge
> > a data service.
>
> I figured it was something like this. In any case, it works great.
> Cingular/ATT must have the same
> emergency locater hardware, so I assume it's just a matter of them
> putting the software on the phones and in their network.

Nope. At least most of the time GSM systems can locate the handset
within an acceptable margin for emergency responders by simple
triangulation of the signal. CDMA either does not or cannot do that.
So to comply with US federal E-911 regulations, modern CDMA handsets
have a GPS locator that sends back over the data channel your location.
(On most such handsets it can be turned off generally, leaving it
active only when you make a 911 call.)

> > Get one or more real GPS units. They come in various styles from
> This won't work. Beside being a very high cost for multiple GPS units
> with the features of VZNavigator, the main users would be my wife and
> daughter, who are not going to carry around a separate GPS. I could
> mount the units in their cars, but that's more work and expense and
> clutter in the car.

Just so long as you know.

btw, for comparison: My Dad is with VZW and sometime last summer he
upgraded his phone from a StarTac that died after many years of
faithful service. I don't know the model he's using now, but it's
another Motorola. It is capable of using VZW's nav system. So he
tried it. And canceled it before the free trial was even up. I don't
know what about it he didn't like, just that he didn't like it. This
past weekend, he and I drove from Boston to Philly for a model train
show. I took my Garmin and plugged it into his car. It worked so
perfectly on the trip that Dad decided that he wants one too. (Though
for the life of me, I cannot figure out why it kept trying to send us
over the George Washington Bridge even after we crossed the Tappen
Zee...)

--
Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
The from userid is killfiled Send personal mail to gordol

"Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe
certainly isn't going to supply it. Always be a moving target. Live.
Live. Live." (Cordelia Vorkosigan [Lois McMaster Bujold, "Barrayar"])

On Tue, 08 May 2007 05:06:34 GMT, John Navas
<[email protected]> wrote:

[snip]

>Truth: AT&T/Cingular has better coverage than Verizon in a great many
>places.

Truth: Verizon has better coverage than AT&T/Cingular in a great many
places.

[email protected] wrote:
> >Search for 52.06924359281394,4.313924955463762 in Google Earth for a nice
> >parking lot photo.
> Zoom in on the bicyclist (Eye alt 100 ft, say) and save the image.
> Now try shrinking that image to 320x320 and you can just barely tell it's
> a bicycle, or clip (unshrunk) to that size and you'll get the bicyclist
> and parts of three cars. That size might be barely useful, but go to a
> quarter the size (160x160) and, IMHO, a single, or even several, such
> pictures are useless for anything but "lookee gee whiz!". It's not
> a question of clever software - it's a question of a little screen.

I have the same problem with maps in general on the phone. If you can
see streets, you can't read the street names. On a GPS, you can usually
hover some sort of cursor over the street and see a name. The Google
images on my phone do seem to be for entertainment value. Zoomed, out,
they give some orientation with features that you might be able to see, but
zoom in doesn't help much.

--
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

On Tue, 08 May 2007 18:58:46 -0700, Anon E. Muss <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>On Tue, 08 May 2007 05:06:34 GMT, John Navas
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>Truth: AT&T/Cingular has better coverage than Verizon in a great many
>>places.
>
>Truth: Verizon has better coverage than AT&T/Cingular in a great many
>places.

And vice versa.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>