[RELATED_ARTICLE]GLONASS support won’t cost extra, and it won’t require expensive recoding of GPS software, Chandhok said. It will, however, require GLONASS radios in devices, so it’s not just a software upgrade for existing phones.
“The whole point of what we provide in our solution is that the software above [the chipset level] doesn’t have to know where the data is coming from,” he said.
I got to see GLONASS in action, and it’s pretty simple. A Qualcomm rep and I took a development phone out onto 28th Street in midtown Manhattan, a tough spot for GPS because of the tall buildings all around. With only GPS turned on, the phone saw two satellites, not enough for a location fix.
In testing dozens of phones, this has been my experience: generally, phones have to rely on inaccurate cell-tower triangulation when they’re on side streets in New York City. Sensitive GPS chipsets can find a fix at a corner, where there’s a bit more sky. Some phones make me walk several blocks down to a park.
So I was impressed when the Qualcomm guy hit the vodka-fueled-turbo-boost button, and pow: 9 of 22. 14 of 22. Bang. Location locked in. Between GPS and GLONASS there are now 55 satellites to choose from, which makes it much easier to find a fix in a narrow slice of sky.
Commercial GLONASS phones are already out in Russia, and Garmin’s new eTrex series of handheld GPS devices already combine GPS and GLONASS in the U.S. The eTrex units aren’t phones, though.
The first combined GPS/GLONASS phones will hit the US market “in the coming year,” Qualcomm said. The majority of new Qualcomm S2 and S3 processors support GLONASS, which includes the dual-core chips coming out in smartphones like the HTC EVO 3D and T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide. Those existing phones won’t be able to use GLONASS, though, because the system requires additional radio hardware.
China and the EU are also working on their own GPS satellite constellations, but they won’t be ready for a few years. Broadcom and ST-Microelectronics have announced combined GPS/GLONASS support as well.