First, have you made sure your GPS is enabled? That sounds like it's trying to use cell towers instead of actual gps. Sometimes referred to as coarse location. There's also "Google location services" which I'm not entirely sure what they use, but it's definitely not precise either.
Anyways, the simplest way to check is to pull down the notification bar, and make sure GPS is green. Now, when loading maps, you should see in the notification area that same GPS symbol will appear. ( The GPS actually isn't on when you enable it to save battery. The GPS antenna only turns on when an app requests a position update. This means you can leave GPS enabled all the time and it shouldn't affect your battery. As soon as you close maps, navigation, or whatever, the icon should go away which means the antenna is off. )
Also, make sure you have mobile data on at the time. It can take GPS a long time to get a correct position sometimes without a little help. Once you have your location, you can turn off mobile data again. It's only required to initially find your location.
Go into the Google Play Store and search for GPS Test. This will provide actual information of your GPS connection, such as number of satellites, strength of those signals, etc. A minimum of 4 GPS Satellites In Use is required. At 9 satellites you will have an accuracy of around 10-15 feet, pretty much the max. A signal over 10 should be enough to use that satellite.
