GPS in Nokia mobile phone is very hard to connect. Maybe in some cases, user’s complaint at the first time they bought the phone, they did not get any problem to use GPS. Maybe it took about 5 minutes top to discover the satellites. Then, the problem occurred once they updated the firmware, the GPS took more 15 minutes (longest record 30minutes) to discover GPS satellites.

I have the same problem. Its fail my Barbelo to work fine. Fail to discover satellites. At one time, I got it discovered, it too about 30minutes. Many people said to me, the problem lays on the model of the phone. I have Nokia E75. I got friend who has Nokia E52 also with the same problem. But, I have a friend who has Nokia E72 and the GPS software easy to discover the satellites.

I wonder and tried google for solution. And finally, I found it.

All Nokia (including old with latest firmware) has special setting to discover phone positioning as fast as possible. Not all users know about this. And the defaults setting for it maybe give a problem to discover satellites.

To check these setting, make sure you have POSITIONING setting at Menu > Control Panel > Setting > General.

One of the setting is Position Method. In my phone, there are “Bluetooth GPS”, Assisted GPS, Integrated GPS and Network Based. I don’t know who the hell has the idea to get position using GSM network based. This kind of method is very hard to discover positioning and give the problem to GPS positioning. So, please make sure network based method is unchecked. Unchecked Bluetooth GPS because we use integrated GPS in the phone. Nokia already include the A-GPS feature to enable fast discoverable. This one is very important. Make it checked.

One more thing, at positioning server setting, disabled it. It is also give a problem. Slow down the GPS positioning.

After that, try to discover GPS using your favorite GPS software. I tested my Nokia E75 with Garmin, Nokia GPS software and GPSd from Barbelo. All software discover GPS satellites within 1 minute. What a success.