Airmail - you might be right but first once the project actually 'proves itself'... For now, it's just an EU tax drain...
This reminds me of the VHS - Beta debate - which one is better? ...imagine if the government decided to create it's own, an even better version of the tape player... ...and then all of a sudden the CD player gets invented...
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Q&A: Europe's Galileo project
IS GALILEO WORTH THE COST?
There are many who have had deep reservations about the cost of Galileo from the outset - and, in particular, the uncertainties that exist about what the precise end-cost will be.
This prompted one sceptic to dub Galileo the "Common Agricultural Policy of the sky".
There is also an intense debate about the true scale of the revenue opportunities available. Who will want to pay for Galileo-enhanced services and how much will they be prepared to pay?
GPS was built at considerable cost by the US taxpayer but the returns for the American economy mean that investment has been repaid many times over. Early GPS entrepreneurs are now dollar billionaires, but how much room is left in the sat-nav market for others?
Also, the progress of the project has hardly inspired confidence. The private consortium of aerospace and telecom companies selected to build and operate Galileo collapsed last year. Infighting and political meddling were blamed.
Galileo has been bedevilled by delays and cost overruns. A group of UK MPs said recently that Galileo provided "a textbook example of how not to run large-scale infrastructure projects".
All that said, the European Commission is adamant that the potential benefits are huge. Even if the value of the future global sat-nav market has been overstated (at 450bn euros annually from 2025 in one analysis), the returns to the EU economy demand member states press ahead with Galileo, the EC believes.