BBC - Glonass: Has Russia's sat-nav system come of age?

With the Glonass satellite-navigation constellation nearly complete,
Russia's plan to wean itself off the US Global Positioning System
(GPS) appears to be coming to fruition.

But Moscow now says it wants the Russian system to work hand-in-hand
with GPS rather than being a direct competitor.

A major Russian producer of navigation technology, KB Navis, also
claims that it has developed the world's first revolutionary chipset
capable of receiving signals from the GPS, Glonass and other
navigation systems.

The head of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) said his
country had chosen to go down a path of integrated compatibility with
the platform operated by its former Cold War foe, as well as with the
European Union's Galileo system and China's Compass network.
Glonass satellite at Baikonur Cosmodrome in December 2009

"We now use a two-signal receiver that supports both GPS and Glonass.
For instance, in the northern latitudes getting a GPS signal is
problematic - we therefore use the Russian system," Anatoly Perminov,
the chief of Roscosmos, said in an exclusive interview with BBC News.

Lots more with graphics and video interview with Russian Space Chief
at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8595704.stm