Russia is negotiating with other countries on the possible joint use of Russia’s global positioning satellite system Glonass, the head of the Russian Space Agency said Tuesday.Glonass, a Russian version of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), is designed for both military and civilian purposes, and allows users to identify their positions in real time. It can also be used in geological prospecting.

“We are in active talks with India, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and other countries on the joint use of the Glonass space system,” Anatoly Perminov said.

“As far as other countries are concerned, we are primarily in talks with the United States and the European Space Agency to prepare agreements on the use of Glonass jointly with GPS and Galileo [satellite navigation systems],” Perimov said.

He said Glonass has been in an intensified stage of development since the president urged for active work on the system.

“The country’s leadership is paying particular attention to the development of the system,” Perminov said. “The Russian president personally set the task of not only actively developing it [the system], but also putting it into operation as soon as possible.”[full article]

60 per cent of WCDMA handsets shipped worldwide will have integrated GPS/Galileo receivers by 2010, says a report by market research firm Berg Insight.
The EU, however, remains vague about future regulations regarding positioning of emergency calls and some member states have not even introduced the common emergency number 112. André Malm, telecom analyst at Berg Insight, however believes that new regulations will be considered once the European Galileo satellite positioning system becomes operational in circa 2010. ‘A future EU directive calling for Galileo positioning of all mobile emergency calls would at the same time improve public safety and create a mass-market for European high technology.
[via digital-media-asia]