Roscosmos, the Russian Federation Space Agency, is negotiating with Vietnam on the deployment of the Glonass signal adjustment stations, a move that scientists believe is good news for Vietnam.

Vietnam has been using GPS (Global Positioning System), a space-based satellite navigation system created by the US government. If the negotiations succeed and Russia can place Glonass, a GPS-like system, in Vietnam and three other countries, Cuba, Nicaragua and China, this will benefit Vietnamese users because it offers more choices for them. 

Dr. Doan Minh Chung, head of the Institute of Space Technology Institute, said so when asked if Vietnam could get any benefits from the placement of the satellite in the country.

Glonass is a Russian global positioning system designed for both civil and military purposes. In the future, Glonass will be allowed to identify locations with high accuracy and minor errors.

There are many different positioning satellites in use in the world. If Globass is present in Vietnam, there would be one more product to compete with the US GPS, while users can get the best advantages from both systems.

“Users will get benefits when there are many products to compete in the market. They will even be able to develop apps from the satellite system,” Chung noted.

An official of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) confirmed that Glonass is an important item in the cooperation program between Russian space center and MST.

“They (Russia) want Vietnam to step by step use Glonass for positioning locations like GPS,” he said. “It is possible that Glonass would be utilized for mobile phones as well.”

Chung noted that he personally believes that the cooperation with Russia in the Glonass plan is really a great opportunity. In the future, Vietnamese may use both Glonass and GPS at the same time for better positioning works.

However, he said there are still many matters to be negotiated between Vietnam and Russia, including ones on the market and the signal receiving unit price.

Chung, who has visited the Russian Glonass system, noted that there is a disadvantage as the devices are big. Therefore, he thinks it is impossible to force users to use Glonass at once. It will take time to persuade users about the benefits they can expect using Glonass.

When asked how Vietnam needs to prepare once the government accepts Glonass, a scientist said no preparations for infrastructure are needed.

Russia will sell devices to be used, while Vietnamese will be able to use Glonass at the same time with existing positioning systems.

“If Russia wants to make Glonass commonly used in Vietnam, it will have to build stations and take necessary measures to attract customers,” he said.