Sagem Orga develops SIM card with A-GPS
If you don’t have a device already equipped with A-GPS and you don’t want to upgrade or spring for a stand-alone unit from the likes of Garmin or TomTom, what do you do? Well, the only other option was a Thomas Guide, really. Now, Sagem Orga, the large smart card maker, has decided to make a SIM card with integrated A-GPS. While it was originally intended for emergency use, handsets without current GPS technology can enjoy the the same benefits as more modern and capable handsets. Whether it will be as accurate as devices already carrying GPS is yet to be determined. We imagine these new SIMs will be huge among carriers as they allow carrier navigation services in countless handsets that aren’t GPS-equipped from the factory. From the Sagem Orga press release:
Sagem Orga and BlueSky Positioning’s new approach incorporates a highly accurate GPS receiver and a proprietary antenna into the SIM card, enabling mobile operators to deploy both legally-mandated and commercial applications quickly and cost-effectively for all mobile devices.
Judging from the press release, it looks like a win-win situation for everyone. Hopefully these new SIM cards will be making their way to local carriers and into handsets soon. Anyone without a GPS-enabled handset excited about this? Anyone still have a handset without GPS?
“Anyone still have a handset without GPS?”
Read: Curve 8320.
My Curve 8300.
*Raises hand slowly*
My LX, I know, why the hell do I still have it even though the G1 is out? Contracts not up yet and Im broke so yeah Im screwed.
Yes Pearl 8100
Not everyone is cool enough to know you know I know where you’re at.
yes. an iPhone .
This is great news! For us blackberry users that don’t have gps, this is a great solution.
If my Bold didn’t have aGPS built in, I’d probably spring for something like this depending on how accurate it is.
My concern is two-fold:
1.) How quickly can it gain a fix? a SIM card slot can’t push a whole lot of current, so I’m assuming the aGPS chip isn’t *that* powerful.
2.) How will it affect battery life?
So how do you transfer your number to one of these? Or would this sim card be through carriers only?
yay. At least I get one thing on my 2.5g iPhone that’s on the 3G. Let’s work on getting 3G capabilites in a SIM now!
@ John: I don’t know if that’s possible – the SIM can affect whether or not a phone gets 3G provisioned, but I don’t think it can change what frequencies the radio in the handset can tune to. The likelihood of someone building a SIM with a radio built in is probably really low due to the power constraints of the SIM slot.
Although, that would be really cool.
i’m a drug dealer and i don’t want to be tracked by this cheapo trick.
This would be neat if I could buy it without it being attached to a cellular provider, so I could just use my old phone as a gps unit.
Sagem Orga(sm).
Yes please.
My treo 650 is begging.
LG Vue… I can’t decide on what to upgrade to. I will take that SIM. Please?! I would even pay extra for it–it’s better than $80 per upgrade on my Magellan.
me got an att sync