A recent agreement by the U.S. and European Commission (EC) may b...
A recent agreement by the U.S. and European Commission (EC) may be an indication the 2 continents are very close to reaching a final accord on GPS and Galileo coordination, said an official close to the situation. A statement…
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by the U.S. and the EC said the parties “bridged several outstanding issues regarding the EC’s Galileo satellite navigation system and the U.S. [GPS]. Most significantly, in view of national security and performance considerations, the parties identified a mutually acceptable modulation for Galileo Public Regulated Services [PRS].” PRS includes civil protection, maritime safety services and emergency response services. The agreement means Galileo’s PRS signal will be located outside the proposed military code, and the code will have a split signal on either side of an existing civil signal at 1575.42 MHz. The only remaining coordination issue deals with the open service and safety-of-life signal proposed for Galileo that, as planned, still will overlap the future military code, he said: “The Europeans are seeking to maximize the performance characteristics of their open service for future users. The trade-off is that there would be significant operational impacts in the battlefield related to navigation warfare concept. Additionally, the DoD believes [the current proposal] endangers more lives.” While this issue and others -- including trade issues raised due to China’s participation in Galileo -- remain, “nothing seems as intractable as it was 2 weeks ago,” the official said. In addition to coordinating the use of certain spectrum, he said, “we want to cooperate in terms of open trade… We want to make sure we have no discrimination in Europe concerning GPS.” Discrimination could be in the form of the creation of regulation or mandates that take away the user’s choice when considering which technology to use, he said: “We don’t want any tilting of the currently level playing field. We want it to be technology neutral.”