[cfg]

I work for the federal gov't and we have a reasonable amount of BBs deployed, with more and more of them being from Verizon. I witnessed a car accident recently and called 911, and had quite a bit of trouble getting my location to the dispatcher. I figured I'd take that as a sign that the GPS was disabled, and try and leverage the federal service reps, who I hoped would understand what I was asking.

They immediately claimed that the GPS was enabled, but said I'd need to talk to the software vendor for BB Maps since there is no Blackberry supported version of VZ Navigator. No surprise there, but when I said that the GPS didn't work for a 911 call someone was assigned to investigate.

A snippet from the second email I received:

The trouble ticket for the GPS issue was submitted yesterday and the network is looking to find out why the GPS appears to not be working for your agency. At this point they are not showing any issues with 911 or the GPS coordinates being received to the public safety access point. Do you remember where you were located when you called 911 on 02/03/07? If the exact location isn't available the cross streets or general area will be sufficient as well.

In addition to the 911 call issue the vendor, in this case RIM, will have to be contacted for the Blackberry Maps application issue. The Verizon Wireless network team has verified that the GPS should be working on all devices and there are no network restrictions.

And then from the final email today:

I received confirmation from our network team that the GPS is working properly on Verizon Wireless' systems and network. The network team was able to get in contact with the Public Safety Access Point (PSAP) who was the recipient of the call. Apparently, the PSAP did not complete a process to receive the coordinates on that call. To receive the coordinates the PSAP must complete a manual process called Re-Bid and the recipient neglected to complete this process.

They didn't have any explanation for the fact that BB Maps works with the Sprint 8703. Time to try going through our account manager I guess.

[cwosigns]

My understanding is that it IS enabled on all Verizon 8703s, but for 911 only. They still have LBS (Location Based Services) disabled on the 8703 for Verizon. Which totally sucks, I agree.

[brucejr]

Which is why I have the Globalsat BT-359 Puck. Would be nice if the GPS feature was enabled (outside of 911). Hope to see future BB on VZW with the capability enabled.