Xiaomi To Launch Phone With NaVIC Navigation Technology In India

NaVIC -- the global navigation system developed by India is all set to become mainstream in the next few months. The GPS counterpart is developed by ISRO, which operates similar to GPS, Beidou, and Galileo. According to the latest report, Xiaomi is working in conjuncture with ISRO to integrate the NaVIC navigation system into its phones.

As of now, NaVIC has an extensive range of 1500 kilometers and even ISRO officials have confirmed that Xiaomi will launch a phone in the next few months with India's own navigation system.

Qualcomm, the US-based smartphone chipset maker has already started producing processors with built-in NaVIC chipset. However, none of the newly launched Snapdragon chipsets at its Tech Summit include support for NaVIC.

"Qualcomm has announced that its chip is going to have NaVIC and they are releasing it. Now almost Xiaomi is in agreement to have it. Xiaomi may launch its mobile phones with NavIC chipsets", said an ISRO official.

As of now, it is unclear if this technology will be incorporated either on a budget or flagship smartphone. If it comes with a budget phone, then a lot of users can definitely get benefit from the same. It is also unclear if Xiaomi/ISRO will launch its own maps app based on NaVIC technology.

A Bit More About NaVIC

NaVIC also goes by the name IRNSS, which stands for Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System. This navigation system can offer SPS (Standard Positioning Service), which will be used by the general audience like us. Similarly, it can also offer RS (Restricted Service), where only select government officials can access it.

It recently got approved by the 3GPP international body for commercial use. Having our own navigation system will reduce the dependency on other countries and the government will also have better control over the data that is being accessed using this technology.

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