PPC-6800 and GPS (Mogul GPS Support Coming)

rambo6 · EVDO Newbie Joined: 20 Jul 2007 Posts: 6

Don't feel too bad about the deal. If you try to buy the phone at the discounted price with the data service, you'll notice that they no longer have the $15/mon data package. The cheapest one is now $30.00 So don't feel too bad.

Also, if you are still within your 30 days, you may call them and try to get the discount.

petrochik · EVDO Newbie Joined: 28 Jul 2007 Posts: 1

Assisted GPS
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GPS is a satellite based positioning system. Assisted GPS, or A-GPS was introduced to enhance performance. The development of A-GPS was accelerated by the U.S. FCC's E911 mandate requiring the position of a cell phone to be available to emergency call dispatchers. [1]

Conventional GPS had difficulty providing reliable positions in environments surrounded by tall buildings - the so-called 'urban canyon', as well as indoors and under heavy tree cover.

Under these conditions, the GPS signal is often of very poor quality, making it hard for receivers to obtain a position. In addition, when first turned on in these conditions, a non-A-GPS may not be able to download the orbital information from the GPS satellites, rendering it unable to function until it has a clear signal for around one minute.

An A-GPS receiver can address these problems in several ways, using an Assistance Server:

The Assistance Server has a good satellite signal, and lots of computation power, so it can compare fragmentary signals relayed to it by cell phones, with the satellite signal it receives directly, and then inform the cell phone or emergency services of the cell phone's position.
It can supply orbital data for the GPS satellites to the cell phone, enabling the cell phone to lock to the satellites when it otherwise could not, and autonomously calculate its position.
It can have better knowledge of ionospheric conditions and other errors affecting the GPS signal than the cell phone alone, enabling more precise calculation of position.
Some A-GPS solutions require an active connection to a cell phone (or other data) network to function, in others [2] [3] it simply makes positioning faster more accurate, but is not required.

As an additional benefit, it can reduce both the amount of CPU and programming required for a GPS Phone by offloading most of the work onto the assistance server. (This is not a large amount for a basic GPS - many early GPSs ran on 386/16 or similar hardware).

xchpstang · Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 11:46 pm Post subject:

A software update is definitely in the works. The ##DEBUG# screen shows all the parameters possible with the Mogul in relation to the GPS. I still don't think Sprint would miss out on profit from GPS enabled apps such as Telenav just like with the Sprint Music Store. The update is coming.

rambo6 · EVDO Newbie Joined: 20 Jul 2007 Posts: 6

Sweet!!! I've got two of the Moguls for my kids.

How does one download music from Sprint's Digital Lounge on their computer? I can download music to the phone, but not to my laptop. In fact, I cannot even login to the music store with my Sprint account. They said they'd fix it. I'm on the $15.00 month data plan.

moose12793 · EVDO Newbie Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 1

so how do you get the upgrade buy the phone with it or can you download it when its out

toddwm · Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 9:55 am Post subject:

One place where ROM updates are posted is on the
HTC Mogul support website:

http://www.htcamerica.net/support/mogul/software-downloads.html

Some decent instructions there on how to upgrade, some
cryptic info on what is in the upgrade, and no info on
the upgrade version number. "2 out 3 ain't bad."

The upgrade at the above site allows the Sprint Music Store
to run better. As somebody put it, it helps Sprint Sales,
not Sprint customers.

I'm expecting that future ROM upgrades (e.g. with GPS support)
will be posted there as well.

harley9 · EVDO Newbie Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 1

There seems to be some confusion about what aGPS (GPSOne) is - it doesn't only depend on cell-site triangulation. aGPS uses GPS satellites just as conventional GPS does (assuming that there are enough satellites visible to the device). aGPS does a couple of things that requires network access. First, it get the satellite ephemeris from the netwrok, massively reducing time to first fix in cold-start situations, because the device doesn't have to search across the entire possible list of satellites to find one and then download the ephemeris from it. Secondly, if the device is not powerful enough to do the location work, it offloads the number-crunching to remote resources. And third, the maps are stored on the network (where they can be updated regualrly) rather than on your device.

As far as locating your device goes, aGPS is GPS; it's assisted by the network when it can/needs to be, to speed up Time to First Fix, or if there aren't enough satellites visible (dense urban settings), or if the device can't do the calculations fast enough.

I suppose from a certain point of view, the carriers have "disabled" the "real" GPS on the Apache - but only because they didn't provide an interface for 3rd party progarms to access it. the aGPS system uses satellites in preference to cell triangulation. It's there, but nobody put in an interface to access it - which, IMHO is different from "disabling" it.

And remember, the carriers have to address some privacy concerns on their handsets that standalone PDA makers do not - they have to ensure that if you don't want anyone but "authorized" remotes accessing your location data. You could make an arguement that by exposing the onboard GPS to 3rd party location apps that have not been approved by the carrier, the carrier is opening themselves up to a "failure to limit information" suit. (I'm not making that arguement, but I'm not a lawyer for a major telecom company either).

happypete · EVDO Newbie Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 1

mhtyler · EVDO Heavy User Joined: 01 Jul 2007 Posts: 133

Has anyone heard when the upgrade to Rev A is due for this thing? its been a few months now and the year is starting to wain.

I went ahead and got an LG Musiq, because I was very disappointed over lack of multimedia support in the Mogul, but I'm going to take a second look once Rev A is out. If tethering over bluetooth works well, this unit will be an excellent TWOFER...strong enough for me to throw over the Musiq and multimedia in favor of other productivity gains.

It is a nice phone in spite of some current limits.

mark
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