The first of the GPS satellites were launched in 1978. In 1993 there were enough of them in orbit above the earth so that the system was operational. Units were available well back to 1992, but they didn't become really reliable until 1996 when civilian units were allowed as much precision as military ones. Oldsmobile introduced the first vehicle GPS system on the market in 1995. GPS was later put into mobile handsets by Verizon, Sprint and Nextel in the late 1990’s.