Google Maps for Mobile - Where the hell am I?

Bluefrog

Today Google added a locate me function to google maps for mobile that uses the cells you are near to triangulate your position if you don't have GPS - they claim it's accurate to a few hundred meters.

Imagine then my surprise to discover I'm in Limerick - it sure as hell looks a lot like Glasnevin..

PRND

It tells me that the service is not available. I wonder if that is just on my phone or on all 3 mobiles or just to do with where I am at present (Donnybrook).

robinph

I've just been getting the service not available message as well so far, and I left the GPS module behind somewhere so cannot try it with that either for the moment.

robinph

This might explain why you currently show up as being in Limerick or nowhere when using this in Ireland:

Clicky

I'll dig out my GPS module tonight and see if it will upload some positions for the cell locations that might then kick it into action for getting location from just the mobile signal for some places round Dublin.

Bluefrog

Yeah, R, figured it would operate in some such fashion. It will be a very useful feature when they have more cells mapped.

I read that only 15% of users have GPS phones at the moment and I would think that's being optimistic.

robinph

Since last trying to use the "My Location" feature I saw mentioned elsewhere on the interweb that it wasn't working for anyone when connected to 3G cell towers and since my phone is on Three therefore meant it would'nt work anywhere until my coverage failed over onto the Vodafone network.

Just tried it again for a laugh today and it does now seem to be working at locating me based on just the cell tower triangulation whilst connected to Three so something must have been fixed somewhere along the line. Or it was actually just that then needed more GPS data samples to be uploaded to Google first.

billbond4

It works for me on O2 Network sometimes, but I dont think its every showed my location when I have been using their 3G network.

meglome

Just tried it here on my Sony Ericsson in Dublin City centre and it's no more than 20m out I'd say. I don't see any way to upload my position to make it more accurate though.

robinph

meglome wrote: »

I don't see any way to upload my position to make it more accurate though.

If you have a GPS attached to your phone then it allegedly uploads your location automagically in the background, I'm not certain if mine actually ever was though. But it is pretty acurate for my current location even though it's only claiming 1700m accuracy right now.

billbond4

I was in North of County Clare, but because I was on the coast my phone was using a mast in County Galway.
So Goggle maps say I was west of Galway City !!! Instead of North county clare.

Mitch Connor

I can't even download the damn thing. Tried to download it last night via maps.google.com/gmm or something like that, and it just brough up a page on my phone saying: This service is not part of the active profile.

Have a Viewty on meteor btw.

billbond4

Did you try http://mobile.google.com ?

Mitch Connor

I'll have to get on to meteor about it at some point. Tried that address and got the same error. Tried www.bbc.co.uk/football, which has definately worked before, and got the error again. Something must be up with the profile settings, but I have no idea what it could be. I'll see if the 'customer support' line is any help, but i doubt it - i have tried downloading the settings for MMS and WAP/GPRS/whatever from their site but it never works. Had to try to sort the settings out myself according to the info on here, got the WAP working (though it is not working now for some reason) but never got the MMS working. Bugger.

billbond4

Do you need to be using the isp.meteor.com as you ISP?
I dont know much about the Meteor data settings, but maybe changing them might help

Mitch Connor

billbond4 wrote: »

Do you need to be using the isp.meteor.com as you ISP?
I dont know much about the Meteor data settings, but maybe changing them might help

tired a load of settings, and had seemingly got it working. No idea really what i was doing though, just trying a load of different setting that i got from here (you'd think they'd be more readily available on the meteor site. At the moment i am using the WAP settings

Service Name: Metoer WAP
Homepage:http://wap.mymeteor.ie
Connection Mode: TCP with proxy
IP: 10.85.85.85
Port: 8799
Access Point Meteor MMS

Its probably all mashed up and wrong!

blah

I'm using it on my iPhone in London, works perfectly, right down to 10-20m. It's a shame the networks couldn't broadcast a simple latitude and longtitude, so much easier and cheaper than gps.

Bluefrog

Well things seem to have improved pretty drastically since I first posted - I'm now in Drumcondra apparantly - getting closer to home - somebody put on the kettle...

billbond4

I think the UK is different,as most/all the mast locations are known in the UK, so google maps can triangulate and get your position closer.

Problem in Ireland is that not all of the masts postions are known/published correctly by operators