Airtel introduces GPS Navigation on BlackBerry 8800 Smartphones in India

Bharti Airtel, one of India’s leading providers of telecommunications services has just announced the launch of GPS-based Navigation Application on Mobile handsets.

The company has collaborated with Swedish-based Wayfinder Systems AB for application of this navigation system.

Using this navigation system, users will be continuously updated with real-time content and geographical data via the wireless network using EDGE/GPRS.

This GPS-based Navigation Application turns compatible mobile phones into a GPS-based navigation system complete with detailed maps and Points-of-Interest of a number of Indian cities such as Delhi and NCR ( Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida, Greater Noida, and Ghaziabad), Bangalore, Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chandigarh.

Besides, Airtel users will also have the option to purchase map information as well as area coverage details in other countries such as Europe and North America.

According to Sanjay Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Mobile Services, Bharti Airtel, “We are now introducing in India, a state of the art GPS based navigation system that will largely benefit all frequent travelers using compatible mobile handsets like BlackBerry 8800.”

For starters, this GPS Navigation application will be available on the BlackBerry 8800 smartphone.

In fact, Airtel is offering a six month free trial for all its Airtel BlackBerry 8800 users. As per this offer, the customer will not be required to pay any subscription charges on the GPS application during this period.

However, data download charges will apply as per the subscriber’s BlackBerry plan.

If you wish to download this GPS Navigation application on to your BlackBerry 8800 smartphone, you will need to send ‘NAV’ as an SMS to ‘3636’.

Run on Nokia's mapping and navigation application smart2go

Nokia announced that its smart2go mapping and navigation platform has been downloaded around 30.000 times during the first two days of being made available.

The application is a free download that enables people to use the most comprehensive map coverage offered on a mobile device. The downloadable application was held back three days so that Nokia could make sure that the first experience with the application, even in its beta form, was a positive experience. Now the beta application can be downloaded from two locations; www.smart2go.com and http://www.nokia.com/maps.

"We regret that we had to disappoint even one person, but holding back the beta application a few days let us make sure that most people received a very good first impression of the application itself," said Ralph Eric Kunz, vice-president, Nokia, Multimedia. "We were very thrilled to see the demand for the product over the weekend, and after seeing the number of downloads for just the PC map loader, decided that we needed to put more capacity when we launched the actual mobile application."

The application allows people to view where they are on a map, search for points-of-interests (POI) around them and create routes to get them there free of charge. Smart2go allows for mapping and routing in over 150 countries and with an additional purchase has support for full turn-by-turn satellite navigation in over 30 countries. Nokia is offering the smart2go application for free for select Nokia S60 and Windows Mobile 5.0 devices initially and has plans to roll out support for most of the major mobile OS platforms including Nokia S60, Series 40, PocketPC, Linux and other Windows Mobile devices - Nokia.