Meteor: is it supposed to cover this state?

Dionysus

This question is probably really for people who are familiar with the mobile network and licensing system in Ireland. I hope you're reading this.


Yesterday while driving in a place I had no idea of I consistently lost the GPS service. You can imagine how infuriating that was, having put all my trust in the GPS service I have on my new "smartphone" and left my physical map sa bhaile. I'm a Meteor customer so my first question is: is the GPS service coterminous with the network's coverage?

My second question is bubbling for years: given the number of places across this state in which I've been where Meteor is non existent, why on earth was Meteor awarded a license to cover this state? Were we, the customers, short-changed by the state? Let me elaborate. If 02, for instance, has service in an area should either: a) Meteor not be forced by law to cover the same area, or 2) Meteor should be given the right, for a fee of course, to use the service of the other provider? To my admittedly civically-minded self, either of those two conditions would show that we, Irish citizens, were put first when the license was being awarded by this state.

Can anybody answer these questions?

Thanks.

StaticNoise

Interesting post.

I imagine that your smartphone has Assisted GPS (not a fully fledged GPS device, but one that is reliant on a network service) so it would not have worked well without coverage. It needs internet access to get a location and use it, etc. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly sure that this is the case. If your service was dropping or not well, you can blame the network coverage.

As for the licence process, I would be interested in hearing about this also.


(Just FYI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS#Description - "Standalone" or "Autonomous" GPS operation uses radio signals from satellites alone. A-GPS additionally uses network resources to locate and utilize the satellites faster as well as better in poor signal conditions.)

My Nokia N86 has the maps saved on the phone, whereas my iPhone 4 relies on the network to download the maps. In the latter case, you would need mobile coverage or else you'd have no maps.

I do agree about Meteor's coverage though, I was trying to use one of their midband modems on the Cork-Dublin train last year, and the amount of areas where I didn't even have GSM coverage was unreal.

MapForJ

Karsini wrote: »

whereas my iPhone 4 relies on the network to download the maps. In the latter case, you would need mobile coverage or else you'd have no maps.

.

does that mean you have to be connected to net all the time?Is it expensive on a smart phone

StaticNoise

MapForJ wrote: »

Karsini wrote: »

whereas my iPhone 4 relies on the network to download the maps. In the latter case, you would need mobile coverage or else you'd have no maps.

.

does that mean you have to be connected to net all the time?Is it expensive on a smart phone

What network and price plan are you on? It can be data heavy, for downloading maps, etc., but not for pinging your location.
If you're on a smartphone plan you should have no worry about data.

MapForJ

MapForJ wrote: »

does that mean you have to be connected to net all the time?Is it expensive on a smart phone

Yes you do, the pricing depends on your data allowance, if you have a data plan you should be fine unless you went nuts. I certainly wouldn't use it abroad as you'd probably be fleeced.

I believe there is a Tom-Tom app for the iPhone that can download the maps but not sure about the price.

StaticNoise

Karsini wrote: »

MapForJ wrote: »

does that mean you have to be connected to net all the time?Is it expensive on a smart phone

Yes you do, the pricing depends on your data allowance, if you have a data plan you should be fine unless you went nuts. I certainly wouldn't use it abroad as you'd probably be fleeced.

I believe there is a Tom-Tom app for the iPhone that can download the maps but not sure about the price.

If you're on Android, try Google Maps (where you can now download the maps for offline use) and the same is for Locus Pro (a program you can buy).
If you have the maps already downloaded then there is far lower data use. Just download them at home on Wifi first.

Kensington

Meteor have 99% population coverage but only about 94% geographic coverage IIRC. So 6% of the country landscape will have no coverage. If your phone uses online maps, or A-GPS then it'll die if you lose network coverage.

Figures are available from ComReg somewhere regarding coverage requirements and quality standards - on boards mobile so can't search at the minute for them...

kirving

It would be too expensive to cover every single area when the fact of the matter is that there is not very many people going to use the service.

Should Dublin Bus serve every single street in Dublin?

A-GPS is better than just regular GPS, in a way. An A-GPS System scans the local area and records what mobile phone towers it's connected to. Your data connection is then used to send the ID numbers of these cells back to Nokia or whoever provides the service in your case.

Nokia then send back the location of the mobile tower, which the phone uses to find it's rough position. Once it has found about where is it, it is then much much easier to find it's actual location via GPS Satellite as it has less complicated processing to do. This saves battery, and speeds up GPS lock times.

(An in-car GPS device would have a better satellite receiver and more powerful software which is used to calculate it's position solely via satellite.)


It is extremely naive to rely upon a GPS device alone, and even more so when you don't know how it works. Unless you have all the maps stored to the phone's memory(like an in-car system), you will need an active data connection to download the maps as you go. Unfortunately, being lost and poor network coverage often go hand in hand.
Nokia maps is by far the best GPS system on a phone, as you can store the maps on the phone. Any other not-so-smartphone masquerading as a "sat-nav" is a joke, since it is often used in places you don't know, like another country, where data is prohibitively expensive.

BostonB

GPS on a phone is better than A-GPS in one major way. It doesn't use data. At least on OVI maps it doesn't.

I have borrowed a Garmin GPS at the moment, and tbh my Nokia does almost everything it does, and just as quick if not quicker.

kirving

A-GPS is used to speed up lock times primarily and give a rough estimate of location first. If you have a data plan, which most smartphone users should, it is an advantage over regular GPS.

Without a data plan, the phone will still achieve a satelite lock, but it will take longer.

Sam Vimes

StaticNoise wrote: »

Interesting post.

I imagine that your smartphone has Assisted GPS (not a fully fledged GPS device, but one that is reliant on a network service) so it would not have worked well without coverage. It needs internet access to get a location and use it, etc. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly sure that this is the case. If your service was dropping or not well, you can blame the network coverage.

That's incorrect. A-GPS is better than regular GPS in that it can use network masts to get a faster lock but it's not dependent on it.

In answer to the OP's question, the GPS coverage comes from satellites in orbit and is unrelated to your mobile network's coverage

srsly78

OP is confused between GPS and maps I think.

GPS = satellites. Will even work when you are on a plane, great fun tracking the journey (what do you mean I'm not supposed to have it turned on? :P)

Maps = Some apps store the maps on phone (Nokia maps, Copilot, Garmin). Others download them as needed off the internetz (google maps).

If you have an android phone (that comes with google maps) or iphone you can still buy another navigation app off the marketplace (Copilot is one).

BostonB

I think android might also do some caching of maps, to reduce it reliance on data downloads.

I would be wary of relying solely on a GPS especially for map navigation. Often they are out of date, and often they send you a way that's less than ideal or more than one place might have the same name in the same area. You kinda have to 2nd guess it a fair bit.

Donny5

Sam Vimes wrote: »

That's incorrect. A-GPS is better than regular GPS in that it can use network masts to get a faster lock but it's not dependent on it.

In answer to the OP's question, the GPS coverage comes from satellites in orbit and is unrelated to your mobile network's coverage

This is not correct, Sam Vimes. I've done a little work with GPS chipsets, and there are two types of Assisted GPS, Mobile Device Assisted and Mobile Device Based A-GPS.

Mobile Device Assisted, which I believe is what is commonly indicated by A-GPS, consists of a partial GPS receiver in the phone and an A-GPS server on the network. The A-GPS server listens to GPS sattelites and builds up a picture of what devices are likely to hear at each cell. The device relays all data from it's partial receiver to the A-GPS server, which calculates the devices location and sends it back to the device. This form of A-GPS is preferred because of the vastly reduced acquisition time and because the partial GPS receiver can be more sensitive at a smaller size than a full receiver. This leads to greater accuracy and means it will work where other GPS receivers won't, such as indoors. The downside is, of course, that the device must have network access to the A-GPS server to operate.

With Mobile Device Based A-GPS, the device does all the work itself, but can receive assistance data from an A-GPS server if available. This form of A-GPS is not reliant on network access, but requires it to benefit from the advantages of A-GPS. It does require a full GPS chipset, though, and I don't think that many mobile phone handsets currently use them.

BostonB

My mobiles GPS doesn't work indoors even when the 3G signal is fine. But it doesn't use use any data. Well none I pay for at least. When I've had no phone signal the GPS still seems to work ok.

In the phones options on the GPS it has the following options

Bluetooth GPS
Assisted GPS
Integrated GPS
Network Based

Of course often things are misnamed.

Donny5

BostonB wrote: »

My mobiles GPS doesn't work indoors even when the 3G signal is fine. But it doesn't use use any data. Well none I pay for at least. When I've had no phone signal the GPS still seems to work ok.

In the phones options on the GPS it has the following options

Bluetooth GPS
Assisted GPS
Integrated GPS
Network Based

Of course often things are misnamed.

That sounds like you have a full GPS chipset and A-GPS in software. If you do have full GPS, you'll have a full receiver, which won't offer the extra sensitivity of an MDA-GPS, but you'll still get the faster acquisition times. It really all depends on the chipset in the device.

Donny5

Donny5 wrote: »

This is not correct, Sam Vimes. I've done a little work with GPS chipsets, and there are two types of Assisted GPS, Mobile Device Assisted and Mobile Device Based A-GPS.

Mobile Device Assisted, which I believe is what is commonly indicated by A-GPS, consists of a partial GPS receiver in the phone and an A-GPS server on the network. The A-GPS server listens to GPS sattelites and builds up a picture of what devices are likely to hear at each cell. The device relays all data from it's partial receiver to the A-GPS server, which calculates the devices location and sends it back to the device. This form of A-GPS is preferred because of the vastly reduced acquisition time and because the partial GPS receiver can be more sensitive at a smaller size than a full receiver. This leads to greater accuracy and means it will work where other GPS receivers won't, such as indoors. The downside is, of course, that the device must have network access to the A-GPS server to operate.

With Mobile Device Based A-GPS, the device does all the work itself, but can receive assistance data from an A-GPS server if available. This form of A-GPS is not reliant on network access, but requires it to benefit from the advantages of A-GPS. It does require a full GPS chipset, though, and I don't think that many mobile phone handsets currently use them.

My N86 can still lock without a data connection but it can take anything up to 5 minutes to do so.

BostonB

That doesn't seem right. My E71 has no data connection and it locks on within a minute, usually about 10 sec. Can it use the A-GPS without data?

kirving

Depending on cloud coverage, location, whether or not you are moving, or have moved since you last used the GPS, it will vary heavily.

BostonB

BostonB wrote: »

That doesn't seem right. My E71 has no data connection and it locks on within a minute, usually about 10 sec. Can it use the A-GPS without data?

With a data connection it gets a lock within 15-30 seconds. Without data, if you're close to the same location where where you last used it, it will lock on fairly quickly. Otherwise you're left waiting.

BostonB

I double checked on the way home with just Integrated GPS ticked it took an age. With Assisted GPS ticked aswell it was only a couple of seconds.

But I have no data package, and don't get billed for any.

So theres a difference between A-GPS and data.

Donny5

Karsini wrote: »

My N86 can still lock without a data connection but it can take anything up to 5 minutes to do so.

Your N86 has Mobile Device Based GPS. Not all phones, do, though.

BostonB wrote: »

That doesn't seem right. My E71 has no data connection and it locks on within a minute, usually about 10 sec. Can it use the A-GPS without data?

It can not use A-GPS but it can use GPS, providing it has a full GPS reciever or Mobile Device Based GPS.

BostonB wrote: »

I double checked on the way home with just Integrated GPS ticked it took an age. With Assisted GPS ticked aswell it was only a couple of seconds.

But I have no data package, and don't get billed for any.

So theres a difference between A-GPS and data.

A-GPS does send and receive data, and to the cellular network, there's no difference between the two, but the A-GPS server will be local while all your other data will be routed to the internet, and that's probably where they track it for billing purposes.

Sam Vimes

Donny5 wrote: »

That sounds like you have a full GPS chipset and A-GPS in software. If you do have full GPS, you'll have a full receiver, which won't offer the extra sensitivity of an MDA-GPS, but you'll still get the faster acquisition times. It really all depends on the chipset in the device.

Mine's the same as BostonB's and so was every other phone I had that had a GPS.

Donny5

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Mine's the same as BostonB's and so was every other phone I had that had a GPS.

Maybe so, but GPS and the commonly used Mobile Device Assisted GPS chipsets are not the same thing. The spec for MDAGPS does not require full GPS capabilities and there are plenty of chipsets that don't supply it. Whether you have come across it or not is immaterial. You said that A-GPS was a superset of GPS and it's not.

StaticNoise

Have we any information regarding the other part of the question and the possible obligation to cover an area/licence decision by Comreg, et al.?

Donny5

StaticNoise wrote: »

Have we any information regarding the other part of the question and the possible obligation to cover an area/licence decision by Comreg, et al.?

Meteor, as with all the GSM operators, is obliged to cover 85% of the population.

Ireland Offline have a ranty but very salient blog post about the upcoming 4g license auctions, which will see the repurposing of the GSM900 frequencies and likely a very large drop in coverage.

Max Power 2010

StaticNoise wrote: »

Have we any information regarding the other part of the question and the possible obligation to cover an area/licence decision by Comreg, et al.?

Here is Meteor's 3G licence information.

http://www.comreg.ie/about_us/comreg_publishes_details_of_meteor_mobile_communications_3g_licence_commitments.43.1025.whatsnew.html

It's pretty much, by 20xx have x amount of Coverage, by 20xx have xx amount of coverage.

No info on 2G, but it would be simular, and as the above poster said they are only obliged to have 85% Population coverage, they currently have 99%, but that is not geographical, so yes if you are out in the middle of nowhere I wouldnt expect much.

Sam Vimes

Donny5 wrote: »

Maybe so, but GPS and the commonly used Mobile Device Assisted GPS chipsets are not the same thing. The spec for MDAGPS does not require full GPS capabilities and there are plenty of chipsets that don't supply it. Whether you have come across it or not is immaterial. You said that A-GPS was a superset of GPS and it's not.

My apologies. According to the wikipedia page on A-GPS both : Some aGPS devices do not have the option of falling back to standalone or autonomous GPS.

I think the type of A-GPS that can fall back on standalone GPS may be more common than you think though since I don't know of any that can't do it, at least on the Irish market. Can you give some examples?