Egypt Lifts Ban on GPS Capable Mobile Phones

Published on: 7th April 2009

The Egyptian authorities have announced plans to loosen the restrictions on the use of GPS devices within the country. The National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) has lifted a ban on civilian use of GPS which had blocked the (official) import of most mid to high end mobile and smartphones.

However, the NTRA will still need to authorise each type of GPS device imported into the country and will control any local manufacturing of the devices, it announced on its website at the weekend.

While GPS devices will be authorised for sale, the use of GPS for vehicle location services, as used in most mapping applications will still be tightly controlled by the regulator.

There were reports last year that Nokia was taking the government to court to try and over turn the ban on GPS enabled mobile phones being sold in the country.

Today, there are now just two countries in the world still ban the commercial use of GPS: Syria and North Korea (which happens to manufacture GPS jamming devices).

On the web: Daily News Egypt - American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt

 

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