ISRO says it's in discussions with all stakeholders about NavIC

The Ministry of IT and Telecom has clarified that it is in discussions with all stakeholders about the matter and no definitive timeline has been decided on the matter after media reports about the government asking all smartphone manufacturers to use NavIC for navigation.

A media report claimed that mobile companies were asked to make phones compatible with NavIC within a few months, clearing all the speculation. Three things were clarified by the tweet. The issue is under discussion with all stakeholders, and the cited meeting was consultative.

ISRO-developed NavIC is India's attempt to have a regional navigation system. There are four global navigation systems - US-based GPS, Russia's Glonass, Europe's Galileo and BeiDou from China.

Currently, a few chipsets from Qualcomm and MediaTek support NavIC. In 2019 Qualcomm announced the support of India's NavIC Satellite Navigation System in Commercial Chipset Platforms. Snapdragon 720 G, 662 and 460 were the first SoCs to get NavIC support, and Qualcomm was to enable NavIC on Snapdragon 865 through a software update. MediaTek 5 G chips support NavIC, on the other hand.

Some smartphones in India already have NavIC support due to the increasing number of mid-level smartphones using these chips. The market share of the top five smartphone brands with NavIC support between January and July 2022 includes Xiaomi 33 per cent OnePlus 24 per cent Vivo 22 per cent and OPPO 5 per cent as per CyberMedia Ressearch.

The move to mandate NavIC usage in smartphones is part of a move by the government to promote self-reliance from GPS. The NavIC support has seen limited support across many smartphone brands, but a stringent timeline to introduce NavIC would have been hard to implement, says Prabhu Ram, Head Industry Intelligence Group IIG CyberMedia Research CMR NavIC stands for Navigation with Indian Constellation, an Indian regional navigation satellite system. This is an independent regional navigation satellite system developed by India, according to ISRO.

It is intended to provide accurate position information to users in India and the region, extending up to 1,500 km from its boundary, which is its primary service area. An extended service area is located between the primary service area and the area that is enclosed by the rectangle from Latitude 30 degree south to 50 degree north, Longitude 30 degree east to 130 degree east.

It can provide two types of devices - Standard Positioning Service SPS and Restricted Service RS To date, ISRO has built a total of nine satellites in the IRNSS series, of which eight are currently in orbit. Three of these satellites are in geostationary orbit GEO, while the rest are in geosynchronous orbits GSO that maintain an inclination of 29 degree to the equatorial plane. The PSLV 39 IRNSS 1 H was unsuccessful, and the satellite could not reach orbit.