I use Nokia Maps navigation on my N97 which is actually fairly accurate and works really well. I've only used it in Lagos, however, so I'm not sure about how accurate the maps for other cities are.

You have to update the application to 3.0, and the maps are available to download for free using the Ovi Suite or Nokia Maps downloader. The only thing you need to pay for is the subscription for turn-by-turn navigation and it's also quite affordable. Comes to about 7500 a year or so.

I made a blog post about it here:
http://www.antinormal.org/2009/07/21/couple-of-weeks-with-the-nokia-n97-and-nokia-maps/

I use Nokia maps application on my E71, and it works very fine.
I was quite impressed with it recently as I used it to 90% accuracy in Abeokuta, then Calabar.
Its free one year license on E71 (that includes turn by turn navigation), if bought from an authorized dealer.

Hello Wallie


1. Does it have street level information - house addresses?

We have full street level names for all the cities, and we also have address information for Lagos and Abuja - by address information, we mean, the house numbers, so you can do house number to house number navigation.

2. Can you burn the map on a DVD in the same format as a Navteq DVD?

No - we dont convert to the NAVTEQ format-


3. Do you have the ability to update the maps with new roads. In other words, can you physically collect the data using GIS equipments?

Yes, we update our data on a daily basis - from the community of users and from our staff who travel round the cities on a daily basis- with GPS/GIS equipment.


4. Are you taking steps to protect your maps (copyrights)?

Yeap - we have copyrights to our maps- some people think it is not enforceable until we slammed a few folks in court in Nigeria.


5. Lastly, do you know someone by the name Ir***i?

Yes, I know him - my good friend.



@Wilife

There are no hidden charges -

As per updates- we keep your name on our database and call u to upgrade once they come out. We do official upgrades every 6 months.

Car Navigating system can work very well in Nigeria just as it work with other cities/country

If our road system is map with GPS data, it will look like what we see in other countries.

Secondry, if you use car navigating system in Lagos where there road are well map with all the POI, you will enjoy it. but going beyound Lagos i hope you will not get a clear map

additional, all you need to do with your Navigating system is to have a correct map in your memory card and put it in a device.

if your city does not have the correct map, you can use your device and do the road mapping with POI and transfer it to your map which u can a well copy it to your memory card.
Very Simple

Guys buy Nokia phones with Nav system (E71) and you can find your way around cities already digitiaed in Nigeria.
i use my E63.

@ topic
How useful are car navigation systems in Naija? Oh about as useful as a bullet hole in the head. Seriously, what address is it gonna navigate. . .the side corner streets or the off lagbaja street opp tamedo rd? That would be interesting.

no way brother,not in nigeria.we have not come to that level,we still have a long way to go.paying extra for such is pure waste of money.

navigation system in nigeria
will only be useful in getting you lost,

@ Fhemmmy,
@inspired_m,
thanks to you guys, i'm learning quite a lot about car satnav systems.

@labiyemmy,
i have a stand alone garmin etrex legend personal navigator. is it possible
to  load it with your maps? if yes how can i do that? do i need to come physically
to your office in lagos?

Which road are you talking about? Or where is the road?

George_D:

@ Fhemmmy,
@inspired_m,
thanks to you guys, i'm learning quite a lot about car satnav systems.

@labiyemmy,
i have a stand alone garmin etrex legend personal navigator. is it possible
to  load it with your maps? if yes how can i do that? do i need to come physically
to your office in lagos?

That map above can work very well with your Garmin product, the map is Garmin map for Nigeria with Lagos well label.
All you need to do is to download it to a memory can using your product instrction

@youngbest, udennaa, Sisi_Kill:
Are you three now insinuating that we that have experienced it do not know what we are saying?
There is abundant gain in acquiring more information you know.

Sisi_Kill:

@ topic
How useful are car navigation systems in Naija? Oh about as useful as a bullet hole in the head. Seriously, what address is it gonna navigate. . .the side corner streets or the off lagbaja street opp tamedo rd? That would be interesting.

Most ignorant comment.

@George_D

If the Garmin Etrex is the mappable one - then, all you need do is send us the device ID and we will send you a chip with the maps already loaded on it.

@labiyemmy,
what do you mean by mappable one? are there some not mappable?

Oh i think GPS navigation in Nigeria is quite impressive, i have personally seen product from Radnon GPS working live while i was there. I will say they are really good and helpfull if they all work like that. I think they have a website as at the last time i checked,  U can google "Radnon" or Radnon GPS

site looking even better now, just found it www.radnon.com

George - D.

Yeap - there are some that you are not allowed to add maps onto them - those ones are not mappable - but I think yours is ok.

It works man, get this i was going all the way from lagos to attend a weeding at University of Ibadan, and i used the google maps on my Blackberry to navigate my way all the way.

So it does work,

We have seen an increase in sales based on this topic- our website has been hit to the maximum ever in a space of three days since the topic started- we offer demo at our office in Abuja and in Lagos-

http://www.ceaser-web.com

08055794269

Call and walk in to see how the system works all over Nigeria, with detailed street maps to places un imaginable.

@labiyemmy,
oh! your sales have jumped up, has it? then maybe you should be thanking me for starting this thread (on your behalf)!

seriously though, if my handheld gps is the mappable type, how much will it cost me to load nigerian maps onto it?

@George

20k only Sir.

@labiyemmy,
is this a one-off payment?

@labiyemmy, Does the 20k amount include all updates to the maps when they become available or we will need to make a new payment.

Thanks.

@George_D, Very thoughtful and useful post,

@naira-ner, Radnon's website looks good but they don't have their prices online,

We'll see, I will definitely go for the one with the best deal abi?

Wilife-

It is a one off. We will call you for updates - major and minor.

While l generally don’t like going into confrontation in online discussions (you cant see who u are discussing with and a lot of nincompoops hide under the cover of their keyboard to fart on the web!) l am constrained to send a rejoinder to this “labiyemmy”.
@labiyemmy

@lastpage
Free on the internet? you mean the hacked maps? Hackers are thieves, dont you know? and the ones you were able to hack and load on your phone are the old maps from the South Africans with less than ten Nigerian cities on it - compare it to ours which has 230 city maps? You cant beat that. And as we speak, we are in negotiations with over five international companies willing us to license our maps to them for their systems - why will you claim to have a country wide navigation system that only has less than ten cities nationwide on it?

You did not start this thread and only came in later. From your post, a few of which l humbly reproduced above, your interest is to sell as much “Maps” as possible and make money. While this is not a bad idea, l want to say two things:
1.) Ignorance is a bigger disease than HIV or poverty (it could give you both!). Even the Americans that “invented” the internet made it free and available 2 anyone, if you are able to harness the information on it. Were the internet to be invented by people like you, l guess only the richest of the rich will have access to it!

2.) Garmin products have been in use for years, before people like you even knew how to power-on a computer.
Like someone said, “there is nothing on earth that has not been made available for free, for anyone, on the internet” ONLY IF YOU CAN DO THE HARDWORK OF FINDING IT!
Without going into the technicality of “freeware” and “copyright” l want to say that loading MAPS into your “purchased” phone or Device is as simple as getting a “Memory Card”, transferring freely available data (MAP) into it and inserting it back into your GPS enabled Phone (N-Series, E-Series or some other high end phone or Navigation device).

One thing that is common among we Nigerians is EXPLOITATION.
We love to exploit ourselves. (The greedy ones amongst us at least.)

“Knowledge is Power” and it is common knowledge that the only reason even our National Assembly will not pass the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill is that it gives the citizens access to information, which if well harnessed, translates to Knowledge, and then it empowers them! Yes, they want our citizens to keep wallowing in ignorance, which creates poverty, so that they can flaunt their mostly ill-gotten wealth in their face! They would rather buy a 4X4-Hummer Jeep to ride over pot holes than repair that road. They would rather use “Air Ambulance” than equip our hospitals, They would rather import a 40KVA Generator that make power available to all of us from PHCN (abi na NEPA sef?).l could go on forever.

It is the same mentality that people like “labiyemmy” have! Exploitative opportunist!
Are you more Garmin, than Garmin itself or how come the company has these European maps all over the internet, to be downloaded for free and used to upgrade your device?
A lot of things that the “Western World” have made available for their citizens, for free, to improve their lives, is “copied and brought to Nigeria, only to be sold at exorbitant prices.
In Europe and America, anyone can bear me witness that for “same Network-2-Network” phone calls and text, it is FREE, yes, free and they still make their profit but in Nigeria, they must exploit us by charging us for even “same network” text!
The Garmin device or the N97 Nokia phone costs a bit of money but UPDATING the device with additional MAPs is FREE. End of Story.

Why should l buy the Garmin device or any other device that is GPS enabled, and still have to pay for MAPS, anytime l am interested in going to another country or location? Is it the likes of this “labiyemmy” and the company he works for, that placed those Satellite in orbits? (the satellite the GPS uses to localize locations and routes). What should the Americans who placed these satellites in orbit charge, if you charge this much just to “copy and paste” data (data that you did not manufacture o!) into a memory card? That means l will “buy Maps” for each and every country l need to go? Arrant nonsense, its only we Nigerians, especially the greedy ones that think they are the smartest, amongst us that believe that.
Again, these Maps are FREELY AVAILABLE from “Nokia OVI Maps” (from where l got mine), Google Street Maps, Garmin Website (not the Naija hustler ones) and a host of a hundred other places on the internet.

.to be continued!

While l generally don’t like going into confrontation in online discussions (you cant see who u are discussing with and a lot of nincompoops hide under the cover of their keyboard to fart on the web!) l am constrained to send a rejoinder to this “labiyemmy”.
@labiyemmy

@lastpage
Free on the internet? you mean the hacked maps? Hackers are thieves, dont you know? and the ones you were able to hack and load on your phone are the old maps from the South Africans with less than ten Nigerian cities on it - compare it to ours which has 230 city maps? You cant beat that. And as we speak, we are in negotiations with over five international companies willing us to license our maps to them for their systems - why will you claim to have a country wide navigation system that only has less than ten cities nationwide on it?

You did not start this thread and only came in later. From your post, a few of which l humbly reproduced above, your interest is to sell as much “Maps” as possible and make money. While this is not a bad idea, l want to say two things:
1.) Ignorance is a bigger disease than HIV or poverty (it could give you both!). Even the Americans that “invented” the internet made it free and available 2 anyone, if you are able to harness the information on it. Were the internet to be invented by people like you, l guess only the richest of the rich will have access to it!

2.) Garmin products have been in use for years, before people like you even knew how to power-on a computer.
Like someone said, “there is nothing on earth that has not been made available for free, for anyone, on the internet” ONLY IF YOU CAN DO THE HARDWORK OF FINDING IT!
Without going into the technicality of “freeware” and “copyright” l want to say that loading MAPS into your “purchased” phone or Device is as simple as getting a “Memory Card”, transferring freely available data (MAP) into it and inserting it back into your GPS enabled Phone (N-Series, E-Series or some other high end phone or Navigation device).

One thing that is common among we Nigerians is EXPLOITATION.
We love to exploit ourselves. (The greedy ones amongst us at least.)

“Knowledge is Power” and it is common knowledge that the only reason even our National Assembly will not pass the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill is that it gives the citizens access to information, which if well harnessed, translates to Knowledge, and then it empowers them! Yes, they want our citizens to keep wallowing in ignorance, which creates poverty, so that they can flaunt their mostly ill-gotten wealth in their face! They would rather buy a 4X4-Hummer Jeep to ride over pot holes than repair that road. They would rather use “Air Ambulance” than equip our hospitals, They would rather import a 40KVA Generator that make power available to all of us from PHCN (abi na NEPA sef?).l could go on forever.

It is the same mentality that people like “labiyemmy” have! Exploitative opportunist!
Are you more Garmin, than Garmin itself or how come the company has these European maps all over the internet, to be downloaded for free and used to upgrade your device?
A lot of things that the “Western World” have made available for their citizens, for free, to improve their lives, is “copied and brought to Nigeria, only to be sold at exorbitant prices.
In Europe and America, anyone can bear me witness that for “same Network-2-Network” phone calls and text, it is FREE, yes, free and they still make their profit but in Nigeria, they must exploit us by charging us for even “same network” text!
The Garmin device or the N97 Nokia phone costs a bit of money but UPDATING the device with additional MAPs is FREE. End of Story.

Why should l buy the Garmin device or any other device that is GPS enabled, and still have to pay for MAPS, anytime l am interested in going to another country or location? Is it the likes of this “labiyemmy” and the company he works for, that placed those Satellite in orbits? (the satellite the GPS uses to localize locations and routes). What should the Americans who placed these satellites in orbit charge, if you charge this much just to “copy and paste” data (data that you did not manufacture o!) into a memory card? That means l will “buy Maps” for each and every country l need to go? Arrant nonsense, its only we Nigerians, especially the greedy ones that think they are the smartest, amongst us that believe that.
Again, these Maps are FREELY AVAILABLE from “Nokia OVI Maps” (from where l got mine), Google Street Maps, Garmin Website (not the Naija hustler ones) and a host of a hundred other places on the internet.

.to be continued!

Is it the roads or the people? How many Nigerians can even read maps, really? Cos Nigerians mostly have an apathy to tech that requires more than push-a-button usage.
Nonetheless, there are a lot of people that use maps. I have tomtom on my HP iPAq hw6915 (an older version). Does anybody know where or how I can get maps for that, for Lagos? How about a Bold

While l generally don’t like going into confrontation in online discussions (you cant see who u are discussing with and a lot of nincompoops hide under the cover of their keyboard to fart on the web!) l am constrained to send a rejoinder to this “labiyemmy”.
@labiyemmy

@lastpage
Free on the internet? you mean the hacked maps? Hackers are thieves, dont you know? and the ones you were able to hack and load on your phone are the old maps from the South Africans with less than ten Nigerian cities on it - compare it to ours which has 230 city maps? You cant beat that. And as we speak, we are in negotiations with over five international companies willing us to license our maps to them for their systems - why will you claim to have a country wide navigation system that only has less than ten cities nationwide on it?

You did not start this thread and only came in later. From your post, a few of which l humbly reproduced above, your interest is to sell as much “Maps” as possible and make money. While this is not a bad idea, l want to say two things:
1.) Ignorance is a bigger disease than HIV or poverty (it could give you both!). Even the Americans that “invented” the internet made it free and available 2 anyone, if you are able to harness the information on it. Were the internet to be invented by people like you, l guess only the richest of the rich will have access to it!

2.) Garmin products have been in use for years, before people like you even knew how to power-on a computer.
Like someone said, “there is nothing on earth that has not been made available for free, for anyone, on the internet” ONLY IF YOU CAN DO THE HARDWORK OF FINDING IT!
Without going into the technicality of “freeware” and “copyright” l want to say that loading MAPS into your “purchased” phone or Device is as simple as getting a “Memory Card”, transferring freely available data (MAP) into it and inserting it back into your GPS enabled Phone (N-Series, E-Series or some other high end phone or Navigation device).

One thing that is common among we Nigerians is EXPLOITATION.
We love to exploit ourselves. (The greedy ones amongst us at least.)