NIS GLONASS, the Russian national provider of satellite navigation services, announced on Friday it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Nokia.
According to the agreement – which follows announcements made in August of this year – the Finnish company is to adapt GLONASS technology to its mobile platforms and devices. The Russian technology may also be integrated in Nokia devices for automobiles.
“This agreement with Nokia will allow us to introduce GLONASS technologies on a massive scale on the Russian and foreign consumer markets,” commented NIS GLONASS General Manager Alexander Gurko.
Although NIS GLONASS insists on calling Nokia “the first global mobile device maker” to sign such an agreement, other mobile mobile manufacturers have already integrated GLONASS and GPS in their devices. Among them are MTS, the Russian mobile operator which launched the first ever GLONASS supported smartphone in April of this year, as well as Samsung and Apple, which discreetly introduced GLONASS features on their most recent models that came out in September and October, respectively.
GLONASS, along with the Chinese made Compass system and the satellite navigation system developed for the European space program Galileo, is an alternative and a complementary system to GPS, the US system which currently dominates the global market.
Customs duties are to be imposed on foreign navigation systems imported into Russia without GLONASS support, starting from 2012.
