Motorola and Nextel Communications issued a statement Tuesday announcing they are aware of a software issue affecting assisted global positioning satellite location (A-GPS) services for the Motorola i205, i305, i530, i710, i730, i733, i736 and i830 iDEN(R) phones.
Engineers from Motorola and Nextel are working to determine the root cause and design a permanent fix to remedy the situation.
For customers using the Motorola i58 and i88 iDEN phones, the A-GPS commercial location services capabilities are fully functional. A-GPS utilizes a combination of satellite, network and software technology to identify the approximate latitude and longitude of the wireless phone.
Nextel’s customers use A-GPS for such purposes as locating fleets of vehicles as they travel or downloading real time weather updates.
Additionally, Nextel’s Motorola iDEN phones continue to be fully operational with regard to other – cellular phone calls, Nextel Direct Connect(R) calls, wireless data such as text messaging and SMS, voice mail, Caller ID, etc.
Nextel’s 911 service continues to be available throughout the country, transmitting the caller’s callback number and nearest cell site to those Public Safety Answering Points – or 911 – call centers.
Nextel has temporarily disabled the transmission of the A-GPS enabled location information for E911 Phase II location services until a permanent solution to the software issue is available.
Nextel will continue selling its current line of Motorola iDEN phones and will update any functionality as required to address this issue.
