India: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India wants to make GPS mandatory in all handsets. This move comes in the wake of Department of Telecommunications accepting 112 as the single emergency number in India. The telecom regulator insists that if GPS is made a compulsory inclusion in all mobile phones, it would help to find out the exact location of the caller in an emergency. The proposal was rejected by the government because there are a major percentage of subscribers in the country who use low-cost handsets which do not support GPS. Manufacturers, however, feel that introducing a GPS chip in handsets should not be very costly once it is mandated. If all manufacturers start making it, ‘economy of scale’ will be achieved.
Source: IE
