GPS Outage in East Texas?

[wilydodger]

Apparently there has been a GPS outage for all android phones in the East Texas area for about a week. I can't find jack about it on the web and the Verizon people were not very helpful about what was going on. Does anyone know how it's possible to have an Android GPS outage in one specific area or just what the frack is up with this?

 

[dylanthecat]

A selective outage does not make sense. The satellites don't transmit only to certain areas. Sounds really strange.

 

[wilydodger]

A selective outage does not make sense. The satellites don't transmit only to certain areas. Sounds really strange.

I talked to the other Verizon store in my town and apparently the outage is a real thing. I'm just not sure how that's possible though since it's only for the East Texas area though and nowhere else. Also, it's weird that I got clipped with the outage while I was on Liberty 2.01. I couldn't have gotten an update from verizon.

The official line from the Verizon store was that both google and verizon were trying to do an "update" at the same time and it ended up knocking out everyone's GPS, but only in this area. Apparently it works if you take your phone out of state. They also said it would be fixed wednesday of next week. I'm still stumped at what could possibly have fracked up standalone GPS applications as well as the google ones...

They said my GPS would work if I went a hundred miles in any direction without any updates. Maybe it's a funky aGPS triangulation error from the towers or something? Although it still happens even if I turn aGPS and wireless network assist off. I really don't know how you can have a localized GPS outage that isn't caused by the satellites themselves, but it seems to be happening...

 

[jchammer123]

Where are you at in east Texas? I'm in Houston and haven't had any problems.

Sent from my Droid using DroidForums

 

[wilydodger]

I'm in Tyler (Deep East Tesas, sigh). Apparently it works if you go as far south as Lufkin, or East into Louisina. I'm still baffled though...

 

[jchammer123]

That is really strange!!!

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[jonakin]

Check out this thread and see if your experience is similar. Very hard to find info about this and pretty baffling...
[Q] Thunderbolt GPS - Page 3 - xda-developers

 

[wilydodger]

Check out this thread and see if your experience is similar. Very hard to find info about this and pretty baffling...
[Q] Thunderbolt GPS - Page 3 - xda-developers

Hey thanks, this issue is a bear to find information about. That is exactly my issue. That thread is a hell of a lot more informative than the ones I've found or started so far.

Fantastic

 

[takeshi]

I talked to the other Verizon store in my town and apparently the outage is a real thing. I'm just not sure how that's possible though since it's only for the East Texas area though and nowhere else.

Depends specifically on the cause. It's likely not a "GPS outage" since GPS outages can't be localized like this. aGPS and GPS app issues, however, could certainly be localized.

Maybe it's a funky aGPS triangulation error from the towers or something?

aGPS is not tower triangulation. If you're triangulating off the towers it's not GPS. aGPS only downloads assistance data for a faster GPS fix. There is no tower triangulation with aGPS despite the seemingly common misunderstanding.

 

[wilydodger]

I talked to the other Verizon store in my town and apparently the outage is a real thing. I'm just not sure how that's possible though since it's only for the East Texas area though and nowhere else.

Depends specifically on the cause. It's likely not a "GPS outage" since GPS outages can't be localized like this. aGPS and GPS app issues, however, could certainly be localized.

Maybe it's a funky aGPS triangulation error from the towers or something?

aGPS is not tower triangulation. If you're triangulating off the towers it's not GPS. aGPS only downloads assistance data for a faster GPS fix. There is no tower triangulation with aGPS despite the seemingly common misunderstanding.

Thanks for correcting my minor terminology mistakes. That has helped tremendously!

BTW, when GPS is out for all apps, on all phones in hundreds of square miles, for thousand of people, for weeks at a time, I think calling it an "outage" isn't totally unreasonable. Feel free to correct that run on sentence if you must

I think I have figured out what the issue is (kind of) if anyone is interested....

 

[Jizzylax]

Aliens blocking satellites??????????

 

[wilydodger]

Aliens blocking satellites??????????

Lol, I was hoping I might not have to try to stumble through an explanation based on my loose understanding. Specially after I was spanked about aGPS. Takeshi is gonna LOOOOVE this...

Ok, the root problem is that Verizon merged their tower identifiers(?) with all the damn Alltell towers they bought up around here. Apparently Google has to update some database with the new information, which will take 2-4 weeks.

Another reason why this is mucking up the GPS is that cell phones must always pull some satellite location(?) data that's based on tower locations from that google database even if you have the aGPS and wireless assist options disabled. I'm getting that from other people with Thunderbolts being able to finally get a lock if the enable airplane mode, then reset the aGPS data, and redownload it via wifi using the "GPS Status" app.

Whew... That sound about right and/or reasonable to everyone?

Takeshi... 1,2,3, Go Go Gadget Correction Storm!

Edit: But yes, I do think that Aliens orchestrated the whole shebang...

 

[thomasshawn]

I'm also in Tyler and having same issues. I flashed literally 10 different ROMS thinking it was some glitch in a nightly. then my wife's incredible started doing the same thing. we are both old alltel customers.

holding my breathe for a fix

 

[wilydodger]

I'm also in Tyler and having same issues. I flashed literally 10 different ROMS thinking it was some glitch in a nightly. then my wife's incredible started doing the same thing. we are both old alltel customers.

holding my breathe for a fix

The whole thing just seems like a giant frack up on Verizon's part. Before this, I would never have believed that Verizon would even contemplate disabling all GPS for their customers for a whole month. I wish I had had someone else with an android phone to double check against. I thought it was just mine and beat my head against the issue for a week straight.

Go check out that XDA thread that someone posted a while back. It has a lot of good info in it...

[Q] Thunderbolt GPS - xda-developers

 

[Suuperflie]

I'm in Tyler (Deep East Tesas, sigh). Apparently it works if you go as far south as Lufkin, or East into Louisina. I'm still baffled though...

I'm from Tyler too dancedroid. Graduated from Arp though :icon_eek: It could be worse. You could be stuck in Wichita Falls, like me.