Is it possible to use GPS on a mobile phone without data charges from the cell phone service provider?

Depends on the make and model of the phone.

For example, with verizon “GPS” phones, you have to connect to the carrier because they are not true GPS phones. they use tower triangulation technology… that, and they don’t have enough memory to store 2 Gigs of data.

On my E90 communicator which does have a true GPS receiver built in, I downloaded all of the maps for the US and transfered them to the phone. That took almost 2 gigs worth of data (hence I used the 2 gigs example for the verizon phone). With the maps already on the device, my phone only needs to connect when I’m searching for a business that’s not in the map database.

So again, it varies from phone to phone.

Even the almighty iPhone doesn’t have a true GPS receiver built-in. It uses triangulation with google maps. Yes, you could install all of the map tiles for your area, but unless you know what you’re doing, you won’t be very successful.