No Timeline Set For Smartphone Makers To Make Devices Compatible With NavIC: MeitY

The Ministry of Electronic & Information Technology (MeitY) has said that it hasn’t set any timeline for smartphone manufacturers to make their devices compatible with India’s navigation system Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC).

Earlier, a Reuters report said that India was pushing smartphone manufacturers to ensure such compatibility within months. 

The government’s push had left the likes of Xiaomi, Samsung, and Apple worried about increase in costs and disruption as the transition from the widely used US-owned Global Positioning System (GPS) to the home-grown NavIC would require hardware changes, the news agency reported.

Responding to the report, the MeitY in a tweet said that while it held a meeting with smartphone makers on the issue, no timeline has been set for the transition. 

“A media report has claimed citing a meeting that mobile cos were asked to make smartphones compatible with NavIC within months. This is to clarify: (1) No timeline has been fixed. (2) The cited meeting was consultative; and (3) the issue is under discussion with all stakeholders,” the ministry said.

The government has been trying to increase the usage of NavIC, which is operational since 2018, in order to reduce India’s dependence on international navigation satellite systems. However, NavIC’s uptake is minimal, for example, it is mandated in public vehicle location trackers.

The Reuters report, citing two industry sources and government documents, said that the Indian administration and space officials are looking to broaden the use of NavIC. They are pushing smartphone manufacturers to make hardware changes in new phones to be sold from January 2023 so that they can support both GPS and NavIC, it said.

As per the report, during a closed-door meeting held on September 2 among top smartphone players, chipmakers, and officials from the Indian IT ministry and space agency, Samsung, in particular, voiced concerns over the proposal.

“This would add to cost as it requires hardware design changes and additional investments to support devices specific to India. Further, the companies have already prepared for models to be launched in 2024,” a Samsung India executive was quoted as saying citing the meeting’s minutes. 

Meanwhile, the report said that the smartphone players had sought time till 2025 to implement the changes. A final decision on the matter is expected in the coming days, a senior government official was mentioned as saying.

India In Satellite Navigation

NavIC is the independent stand-alone navigation satellite system of India developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It does not depend on other systems for providing position service within the service region. NavIC is fully under the Indian government’s control.

Currently, there are five other global satellite navigation systems in the world – GLONASS from Russia, Galileo from the European Union, BeiDou from China, QZSS from Japan, and the widely-used GPS from the US.

MoS for the Ministry of Science and Technology Jitendra Singh informed the Parliament last month that NavIC is as good as GPS in terms of position accuracy and availability in its service region. NavIC satellites are placed at an altitude of about 36,000 km, while GPS satellites are placed at an altitude of about 20,000 km, he said.

As per ISRO, NavIC was conceived and built mainly with the aim of having an independent navigation satellite system for India and eliminating the country’s dependence on foreign satellite systems for navigation service requirements. It was not built for the purpose of revenue generation.

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