Qualcomm dials in Glonass for 'dual-core' mobile locating

Don't rely on GPS...

Qualcomm dials in Glonass for 'dual-core' mobile locating. Phones, Qualcomm, GPS, Glonass 0

16 December 2011 16:02 GMT / By Paul Lamkin

Qualcomm has announced support for Glonass in its latest Snapdragon processors, meaning that mobiles packing the S2 and S3 chips will have a location accuracy of just 2 metres (and the S4 when it lands next year).

Glonass, in case you didn't know, stands for Globalnaya navigatsionnaya sputnikovaya sistema or Global navigation satellite system and, as you probably gathered from the first moniker, is the radio-based satellite navigation system operated for the Russian government by the Russian Space Forces.

Refereed to, tongue firmly in cheek, by the San Diego based chip giant as a "dual-core location system", the teaming up of traditional GPS with Glonass means that, instead of accessing 27 satellites, you could have access to 51 with the 24 extra ones that Glonass provides.

This means not only better accuracy, but quicker loading times too. And, to save your battery, Qualcomm powered phones will only try and lock onto Glonass should GPS be proving hard to hook up with.

Already available on the ZTE 945, the Glonass connectivity is set to hit the US T-Mobile version of the Samsung Galaxy S II and will be available on other devices going forward. It will be up to the individual networks to allow the functionality though.