Five Things YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT...

GLOBAL Positioning System; SMARTPHONES; ARTIFICIAL satellites in navigation; WIRELESS Internet; CELL phone towers; WIRELESS telecommunication services industry

The article focuses on assisted global positioning systems (GPS) in smartphones. It states that smartphones need a direct line-of-sight connection to a minimum of four GPS satellites to get a three-dimensional location fix, which takes around 30 seconds. It mentions smartphones are able to find satellites more rapidly when they have a rough location from Wi-Fi and cellular networks. It comments that cellular providers provide smartphones with GPS satellite locations.