Russian Satellite System

You have probably seen the Suddenlink or similar TV commercias involving a woman calling 911 in an emergency. The 911 operator says to the distraught woman that the communication from her cell phone is distorted and asks the woman if she can phone back on a landline so that the distraught woman's location can be determined.
Suddenlink is trying to sell landline phone service on the basis that the location of a landline phone can be determined easily by a 911 operator, while it cannot for a cell phone.
You are likely also aware of the existence of a device known as a GPS, which stands for Global Positioning satellite. The device, which you carry, can communicate with satellites and report back to the device its location anywhere on earth, within a few meters.
Smart cell phones are usually equipped with GPS, which the cell phone can use to determine its position, but this does not automatically report the position to another party calling the smart phone. The smart phone operator would have to verbally advise the other person where he is located. The problem with that is smart cell phones are wireless and are not always within range of a wireless system, such as Wi-Fi.
To overcome this deficiency, suppliers of cell phone service have proposed that a Russian satellite system be used to identify the location of a cell phone to any third party. I'm not familiar how this would be done, but I'll take the word of the phone companies that it is possible.
The key question here is why a Russian satellite system is sophisticated enough to supply this service outside of Russia, when an American satellite system cannot do the same thing for its own territory.
Satellite systems can have many functions besides locating position of a cell phone. Many of its applications are of military significance. The implication of the whole cell phone location matter should be more properly considered as a question of whether the United States has ceded technological superiority to the Russians in the application of satellites for any purpose.
Fortunately, the Washington Times says that the U.S. Congress is on this. Congress will be considering and probably opposing use of the Russian satellite system for correcting the deficiency of cell phone location. However, the more obvious problem is whether Russian satellite technology use is superior to our own. If that is true, we better get on the ball and do something about it. We need to be technologically superior to any country in the world, in order to properly defend ourselves. In the case of satellite usage, we may need more and better satellites. Whatever is necessary, we should do it. It already galls me that we have to rent space from the Russians in the space station, but that's an emotional reaction, not specifically based on military considerations. The satellite situation is completely different. We should not be dependent on the Russians to allow us to use their system.