Lost and Found

Lost and Found

Lost and Found

10/15/2012 | 47 pages
Price: $1,195.00
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A-GNSS platform and navigation application test results

In this issue of Signals Ahead we provide part two of our two-part series on A-GNSS platform performance. This particular focus was on the real-world performance of the most popular smartphones in a commercial network, including the time required to obtain an unassisted satellite fix and their measurement accuracy under different conditions.

Additionally, we provide an analysis of the most popular navigation applications, including AT&T Navigator, VZ Navigator, Google Maps, and TeleNav, as implemented on a Verizon Wireless iPhone. This study focused on performance characteristics, such as the amount of signaling traffic that the applications generated, the amount of data traffic that they consumed, and their impact on the battery life, as determined by the length of time the smartphone remained in the connected state.

KEY FINDINGS (Navigation Applications)

Although all navigation applications took us from Point A to Point B with relative ease, each application behaved in a unique fashion. Bottom line, some navigation applications are more network friendly than other navigation applications.
Specifically,

  • Up to a 10x difference in connection-related signaling traffic exists
  • A 5x to 8x difference in the amount of time the device remains connected to the network
  • A 50% to 100% variation in the amount of generated downlink + uplink data traffic

KEY FINDINGS (A-GPS Platform Testing)

  • Results largely map the lab-based results that we obtained with Spirent
  • Urban canyon results were ‘poor” for all devices, but to varying degrees
  • Network assistance is critical when it comes to using GPS on a mobile device
  • Interesting results for the iPhone