Activating GPS in Sprint Mobile Broadband Card

August 30, 2008 · 5 Comments

I have had a Sprint Mobile Broadband card for a long time. I love it. It gets me online wherever I am and whenever I need it. One thing i noticed about it when I bought it was that it has a GPS receiver in it. Up until now, Sprint has not been very forthcoming in how to get to the GPS to use it. Well, it turns out you need to use their Activation & Location Tool. This app must be running if you want access to the serial port that provides the GPS data (as NMEA sentences). While in this mode, you can also use the device as a GPS inside of Google Earth. Sounds like this little piece of hardware would be a good candidate for Merapi......

Activating GPS in Sprint Mobile Broadband Card

Tags: Adobe · AIR · Flex · General · Google · Merapi · Universal Mind

5 responses so far ↓

1 Marc // Sep 3, 2008 at 5:56 PM

I know what you mean. I've got a Sprint Aircard as well and the GPS feature has been pretty handy. I wrote a bit on how it saved me when I blew a tire on the I-10 (http://www.mobile-broadband-reviews.com/sprint-coverage-area.html). One thing I would love to see is turn by turn directions though. If they did that, they might put Garmin and all those guys out of business. I know the capability is there but for some reason (read:$$$) they haven't
2 Andrew Powell // Sep 5, 2008 at 8:53 AM

@Marc - We can do this with Flex and AIR. It means carrying your laptop in your car for directions. At the end of the day, a GPS unit like a Tom Tom seems more fit for this task.
3 Andrew Trice // Oct 22, 2008 at 12:05 PM

I've got a NMEA parser that's integrated with Merapi... I can share it after MAX, if you're interested.
4 Andy Powell // Oct 22, 2008 at 3:27 PM

@Andrew sounds good. I only parsed out the $GPGGA prefixed sentences with mine since that's all I was getting.
5 JesseJames // Jun 26, 2009 at 3:24 PM

i am using a sprint broadband card for gps purposes also. you can find all the information that your heart desires at www.laptopgpsworld.com I use a program called streets and trips to plan my driving routes for work. there are a number of other programs listed on the site. good luck! jesse

Andrew Powell

Into The Mind of A Solutions Architect