Sony is jumping on the bandwagon so to speak and taking use of Russia’s Glonass positioning system, announcing that the technology will be implemented in a set of new devices and also supported in older handsets.

What’s Glonass i hear you ask? – Well, Glonass is Russia’s positioning system and alternative to GPS. Sony

Hear direct from the Sony Ericsson Developers World it’s explained more in-depth.

What are GPS and GLONASS?

GPS stands for Global Positioning System and is a satellite based positioning system owned and maintained by the US Air Force. The GPS system currently contains 31 active satellites transmitting signals. GPS is used by millions of civil devices to calculate the position.

GLONASS stands for Globalnaya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema and is also a satellite based positioning system but is owned and maintained by the Russian Space Forces. GLONASS development started in 1976 but it was not until October 2011 that full global coverage with modern satellites was achieved with 24 active satellites. Hence the number of GLONASS-only devices is very limited.

Basically one the supported devices that are listed at the bottom of this post we now will have 55 satellites compared to 31 on GPS only receivers. Field tests have show that accuracy rose by up to 50% and not only speeds up the time it takes to lock on to a signal, but it also ensure you get that  lock on in trickier places.

This also brings Sony inline with others rivals like Apple, Nokia and Motorola as they to have devices with  integrated Glonass-ready hardware.

• Xperia S
• Xperia Ion
• Xperia Arc
• Xperia Arc S
• Xperia Ray
• Xperia Neo
• Xperia Pro
• Xperia Play
• Xperia Active
• Live with Walkman

Source: Sony Ericsson Developers World