In article <3Rpji.9358$bO2.4319@trnddc05>, Wes Groleau
<groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:

> > I'd still like someone to explain to me how a cell phone can access a
> > GPD system without separate circuitry for GPS and a satellite antenna.
>
> Ask Sony, Sanyo, Nokia, or ... they all do it. Well, I don't
> know exactly what you mean by "separate"

Discrete. Specific enough to work for that function.
You can't use the GPS processor circuitry for the cell phone circuitry;
they are separate chips. It doesn't seem there is much in a GPS
receiver that is duplicated in a cell phone.
So where does all the stuff in a GPS unit fit into a (smaller already)
cell phone? The antenna is almost certainly different, and larger. The
circuits work differently. A GPS draws a lot more power more often.

What I'm wondering is if people are being told it is GPS they are
getting when the system merely uses cell towers to set the location?

> Though you're more likely to get an answer from the makers
> of the Neo1973 -http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo1973
> or from http://howstuffworks.com

How Stuff Works gave a good start, then gave up when it got to my part
of the question -- does it really use GPS satellites and calculations
to build the location?