You're right, I blended two ideas into one - oops! Ah...insomnia will do that to ya. What I was trying to say was that there is circuitry in AGPS-enabled phones that uses the cell tower's signals as if they were GPS satellites, then sends the timing data back to the tower because the phone doesn't have enough processing power to crunch the numbers that give actual coordinates. Most consumer phones don't have satellite GPS chips, which can do the number crunching, or the antenna to receive signals from GPS satellites. Without those elements they lack the ability to independently obtain a GPS fix. My understanding is that unless the phone specifically says "GPS enabled", like the new iPhone and a number of smartphones, it lacks that capability without tower assistance.

The cellular towers still can used to locate cell phones without AGPS or GPS using triangulation based on signal strength. It's not very accurate - but the capability is there.