no GPS use in Egypt
Published on October 13th, 2008 in gps navigation, misc news
There’s no point in getting a fancy phone with GPS or A-GPS in Egypt for the government has a strict ban on the use of such devices. Other countries where government does not want its citizens not know where they’re headed are Syria and North Korea.
The ban also includes other GPS enabled electronics such car GPS navigation systems and handheld GPS receivers.
Mobile phones like the Nokia N95, N82 as well as iPhones and some 3G phones are banned in Egypt, leaving the market deprived of the latest technology and features that are fast becoming standard in the new generation of mobile phones.
Sources say GPS is allowed if and only if you can get license after getting approval from security authorities and National Telecommunication Regulator Agency.
We’d like to hear from our Egyptian readers or other who have visited there recently…
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Will they confiscate your GPS capable phone if they find it when you enter the country? And will they give it back?
First, North Korea, then Syria…now Egypt!!! My vacation plans are ruined.
No GPS in Cuba. They will confiscate the unit at the airport.
[...] No GPS use in Egypt (Navigadget) [...]
[...] Navigadget // [...]
[...] Vía | Navigadget [...]
lol at FreddyB….
i live in Egypt and i see police officers in egypt having an N95 :-)
give it time…
No, they will not confiscate your GPS capable phones. In fact those phones ARE sold in Egypt but unofficially, that is ther are not imported through regular dealers.
The lack of proper maps is going to be your problem not the handset itself :)
These phones are available in mostly every mobile shop in Egypt. They will not be conficated at the airport as the officals only ask for computers. A mobile is a mobile to these guys. Mobiles of all types are allowed. They have no idea what a GPS mobile is. Even if you showed this telephone to the customs officals (and who would be stupid enough to do that freely?!?) the customs guys would not even know they were GPS capable. But in doing this you still may be unlucky and have to pay a “fine” for entry if they are feeling that you could be scammed into giving away money for nothing as they will always try for anything they can get off the tourists because they are just corrupt & they think they can get away with it!! More importantly, the fact that there is no GPS maps available for Egypt makes the whole idea of bringing your phone to use in Egypt a waste of time. I bring my GPS mobile in & out of Egypt regularly since I visit Europe quite often. Even if it is supposed to be “illegal” they will still be able to work if there is a map, as mine works! If anybody knows where I can get a map of Egypt for my GPS mobile I would be very thankful!
Long live Egypt!
what will you do with a gps if you have no map for egypt anywhere
[...] when we talked about the Egyptian government ban on GPS devices? Well apparently Apple complied and now is offering their iPhone 3G without the GPS feature [...]
Gps phone enter egypt by this is legal
Some friends of mine regularly use their GPS systems when they go into the desert on raids, otherwise it’s pretty difficult to use it in Cairo, due to the maze of streets that continuously change directions!
Well, the only correct reply i found among all the posted replies up there is the one from Amr. It’s true that A-GPS phones are unofficially sold everywhere in egypt..and it’s not true that there’s are no maps for egypt. Nokia offers a great routable map that includes both cairo and alexandria.. also, on many web sites a lot of gps maps for egypt are provided for free to whoever is interested. Those maps are usually made by amateurs who want to share their knowledge with others. The making of gps maps (img. format) is not difficult and there is a lot of available free programs that are simple to use for the more serious gps users. Having a Gps device in egypt is a lot of fun and i, as an egyptian consider it a must to have one in order to find my way through either on or off road.
You can always go to tis site, http://www.openstreetmap.org/
and download them to u’er garmin device or smartphone by
http://cloudmade.com/ it has many formats .IMG too
these 2 site are create by Ametures, i even helped a little u can to…
it’s easy.
create your route and use mgmaps http://www.mgmaps.com/
download it on your phone, it’s java so it should work with all phone GPS enabled.
by the way Google maps are getting better, soon they will be better than Nokia Maps.
Хм… Мне кажется, минусы значительно превосходят плюсы. Думаю, не стоит заморачиваться.
Well, guys there are couple of nav applications that runs on PDA’s or Sembian that have decent maps of egypt, I ve been using them YEARs ago, just try not to get caught :)
they say it’s illegal ,, there are maps for egypt (cairo and alexandria only ) and the gps works just fine ;)
I was told they will not confiscate the GPS, because there is no legal law prevent from owning one although there is no clear encouragement for using GPS.
It is a grey area… unlike un-licence guns… so by law, carrying un-licence GPS is not legally equal to carrying un-licence gun. Again, it is true that for commercial use (i.e. oil & mining companies need licence to operate with GPS).
The typical common handheld GPS is ONLY a receiving device and the ones that are more problematic are the sending ones (i.e. two-way radio GPS units)
Finally, the ban has been lifted!
http://tinyurl.com/c7zsyf
Finally they allowed GPS navigation system this week in Egypt !!!
Maybe someone important decided to get a GPS phone, so they decided to make it legal!!