India space organization ISRO and Chinese mobile manufacturer Xiaomi are in advanced talks on bringing India’s own location service NavIC to smartphones. NavIC is the operational name of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System that similar to GPS to provide accurate position information.
ISRO had already convinced Qualcomm to include NavIC in the chipset. international body 3GPP has already approved the usage of NavIC. Back in October, Qualcomm confirmed the development of the chipset platform supporting NavIC. The company confirmed that NavIC would be available in selected chipset and devices could arrive in 2020.
Now if ISRO and Xiaomi are in talks, it means Xiaomi could be the first one to launch smartphones with chipset supporting NavIC.
NavIC covers India and a region extending 1,500 km around it. ISRO already has plans for further extension. This system was developed to be independent of foreign government-controlled GPS and to help Indian military operations.
NavIC provides geolocation services in two ways. One is the Standard Positioning Service (SPS) that is open for all users. Another one is the Restricted Service (RS) that is encrypted geolocation service for government and military use.
