One of the major benefits of having a 7 inch tablet running an Android operating system is the free Google Maps and Navigation application. If you have not discover it, the Dell Streak 7 is a perfect GPS device. And Google gives it all away for free! What more can you ask for? You get free maps along with Text-To-Speech navigation. However, if you have been using your Streak 7 as a GPS system, you may be disappointed by the long wait for it to get a GPS lock after a hard boot. Some have complained that it took them 15 to 20 minutes before they can get a satellite lock. This is unacceptable, and there is a way to remedy this.
Before we show you what to do, you need to understand the technical aspect of the matter. In addition to the stand alone GPS chip in the Streak 7, Android also utilizes an Assisted-GPS (aGPS or A-GPS) system. A Standalone GPS system needs orbital information of the satellites to calculate the current position. The data rate of the satellite signal is only 50 b/s, so downloading orbital information like ephemeris and almanac directly from satellites typically takes a long time. In A-GPS, the Network Operator deploys an A-GPS server. These A-GPS servers download the orbital information from the satellite and store it in the database. An A-GPS capable device can connect to these servers and download this information using Mobile Network radio bearers such as GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, LTE or even using other wireless radio bearers such as WIFI. The data rate of these bearers is high, hence downloading orbital information takes less time.
In the case of the Wi-Fi Streak 7, a Wi-Fi connection is needed to quickly get the ephemeris information (orbital information) from the A-GPS server. So if you are having to wait a long time to get a GPS lock when you use Google Maps or Navigation, connect to a nearest Wi-Fi network and you will get an instant GPS lock. Try it out for yourself, and happy driving!
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