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Verizon wireless gps issues

moondrius

Android Enthusiast
Apr 29, 2010
538
117
Baltimore MD
I have been a long time Verizon wireless customer. I have explored other carriers in the past such as an iphone 3gs on Att or the Evo on sprint. I have noticed since coming back to Verizon in July of last year that gps location services have been really inconsistent across all of my devices. Devices such as the Droid x,Droid 2, Fascinate, Thunderbolt and now the Droid Charge have all struggled from time to time to lock onto gps.

I troubleshooted with Verizon wireless and was told that because I am not using VZnavagator that it is a third party problem and I would have to contact Google to see why I could not lock onto gps. At this time I had a Fascinate and asked if I should also contact Microsoft because bing maps was not working either. They refused to admit to a problem on Verizons end so I just went with the fact that it might just be an Android problem.

After having problems with my Thunderbolt I decided to give the Atrix a try. The phone was amazing, gps worked inside,outside, anywhere I wanted and it worked instantly every time. Its too bad that my closest tower was 2 miles away from my house and my phone would never ring and go straight to voicemail half the time. ATT reps told me I was too far away from the tower and I should return the phone before my 30 days were up.

I went back to Verizon and tried the Droid Charge which I have minimal complaints about and really enjoy the phone other then 1 thing, the gps issues. I contact Verizon again to see if they can send a tech out to see if it can be replicated and they flat out refuse. I believe it might have something to do with how the data is handled giving bad agps info to these phones. This time I am told to contact novatel and they gave me a number. This number was for corporate use and does not offer troubleshooting of any kind.

I tested my Droid Charge against a Thunderbolt too see how they performed with gps lock thinking it might be the whole galaxy s issues all over again with a bad gps chip. After having both devices on running gps status the Charge locked in 15 minutes and the Thunderbolt shortly after. In this location sometimes it will lock right away and sometimes it never will. To see this happen with 2 devices on 2 different accounts was a surprise. I talked a Best Buy mobile rep today and he said his LG Ally does the same thing.

I call Verizon back and they offer me VZnavagator free for a month and I refused it. I told them that google maps works well on every phone I have used other then my Verizon ones. Again they point the blame every way but to them. Is this a way for them to sell more subscriptions to VZnavagator? Are they filtering "third party" location services to make them less reliable? Surely I can't imagine to many people actually subscribe to VZnavagator seeing how google provides free and better navigation preloaded on most phones.

Has anyone anywhere had these types of issues? I live in the Baltimore County area of Maryland and it very common for me to not be able to lock on no matter what device I am using. As bad as att was when I had them the gps still locked on instantly, even with a poor signal. The fact that Verizon reps point the finger to blame everyone else and try to sell you what they have to offer is really what gets me. Even if I had to pay for it to unlock location services I would still use google maps over it.
 
Some are filing complaints with the FTC over this issue, it wouldn't hurt and wouldn't take much of your time. https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

Thank you, I actually filed one yesterday. Its hard to believe that they wont even look into it. When I have an ATT phone that wont even ring half the time and it has no issues at all locating me and my great signal strength lte verizon phone cant I just don't see how thats a problem with the application. They told me google maps might be incompatible with verizons network.
 
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Thank you, I actually filed one yesterday. Its hard to believe that they wont even look into it. When I have an ATT phone that wont even ring half the time and it has no issues at all locating me and my great signal strength lte verizon phone cant I just don't see how thats a problem with the application. They told me google maps might be incompatible with verizons network.

Thats great, Google provides the location service for thier network, but its not compatable. lol
 
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Thats great, Google provides the location service for thier network, but its not compatable. lol
This is why they won't send a tech out. They claim that if I can't get a lock on in google maps that theres a problem with the app. I explained that I have used gps status as well as gps test apps and both can sometimes lock and sometimes never will. Sometimes they see 10 satellites and cannot connect to any of them. And of course when I speak to a rep gps always works for them and they have never had a problem. They also love vznav and think its the greatest thing available. When they offer it to me I told them even if it was free I would not use it. The supervisor was to call me back today and what a surprise, nothing as of yet.
 
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HMM. GPS now works fine on my Samsung Fascinate but it took a lot of doing and help from the forums. Now after having to get a new phone because the previous one would not accept the Froyo update, the GPS works great in the new phone with Froyo. I think the Quality Control on the GPS chips that Verizon specifies in their phones is pretty lax and there are a lot of marginal chips out there. That plus whatever they fixed in the Froyo update has solved the problem. Who knows, with Verizon's "excellent" track record your GPS problems may go away in about, oh, say 6 months or so when enough customers have complained about it. Whatever they say, it is definitely not a Google problem but because, intentionally or not, they have engineered their phones and software not to play nice with Google. Maybe we should rename Verizon as "Gougele".
 
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