US: GPS-Galileo Agreement To Be Inked This Week

July 18, 2007
US: GPS-Galileo Agreement To Be Inked This Week
By Lewis Page
Register, July 18, 2007

US negotiators in Brussels expect to reach agreement with the
European Union within a week regarding cooperative use of the
American Global Positioning System (GPS) and the EU's proposed
Galileo sat-nav constellations. Reuters reports that the American
plan is for GPS and Galileo satellites to employ the same
frequencies, making it simple for a single receiver to make use of
both systems simultaneously. The wire service quoted Raymond Clore of
the US State Department as saying that "the market probably will
drive dual-use receivers. We think probably that single GPS-specific,
or Galileo-specific receivers...will phase out in time". With 30 GPS
spacecraft already in orbit, and potentially 30 more Galileo birds, a
dual-system satnav would seldom have trouble getting a fix even in
difficult circumstances. "It just doesn't make sense to limit
yourself to just one system," said Clore. That's true for most
civilian users, provided there's no price increase involved; and
there needn't be. Even under original plans for Galileo, which
envisaged a lot of people paying to use it, there was to be a basic
free service, roughly equivalent to current civilian GPS. Sixty sats
instead of 30 would provide a useful enhancement for ordinary users
in "urban canyons" or other tricky spots, though it's pretty diffcult
to say that this would really be worth the billions of taxpayers'
money which will probably meet the Galileo bills. There should also
be an increase in accuracy, but this is coming anyway courtesy of the
US taxpayer as GPS upgrades to Block III. Reuters reported that the
European Commission (EC), the hardcore permanent bureaucracy at
Brussels, confirmed that an American offer had been tabled "but could
not say" when or if it might be agreed. Of the EC's concerns over
Galileo - much though it is described as a purely civilian system -
is that it be fully independent of US policy and technology. The EC
contends that sat nav is becoming a vital piece of civilian
infrastructure, and that Europeans should not rely on American
goodwill to maintain it. It's rather unlikely that America would ever
choose to deny sat nav service to ordinary Europeans, and indeed it
has said as much publicly. But America might well degrade, encrypt,
or cut off service in a military context such as a warzone. Modern
military action genuinely is becoming dependent on sat nav to a
substantial degree - whatever one thinks of the civilian applications
and their importance. Many in the EC probably believe Europe should
be able to carry out military action independent of America. While
this kind of talk is always avoided in the context of Galileo, the
EC's primary concern is that Galileo be able to operate no matter
what America does; not that Galileo/GPS dual receivers be easy to
build and use.