GPS Down

[Flying Binghi]

via WhatzaLizard :
...GPS is the greatest give away by a country in the history of the world. We should have licensed every receiver to collect royalties...

If yer read the link via ATC Watcher you would see there has been money made from GPS. The commercial opportunities have ensured the concerns of the military were overruled...

"The United States has a rapidly growing GPS industry whose global sales are expected to..." continues page 16 - http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand...MR614.sec2.pdf






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[4Greens]

The major safety concern is that there is still only one operating worldwide GPS system. In the jargon a simgle point failure. The sooner we get another system the better.

[Nemrytter]

Not true, GLONASS is also operational on a global scale - we already use it as an alternative to the US GPS.

[riverrock83]

And pretty much every new phone on the market connects to both GLONASS and GPS transparently (as Russia adds an extra tax on all GPS only devices).

[Heathrow Harry]

I think the Chinese have some similar system under development as well - don't trust the Russians OR the Yanks - very very wise

[FlightPathOBN]

Everyone is getting into the game...

GLONASS is the Russian system, Galileo is the EU, BeiDou is Chinese, and IRNSS by India.

GLONASS and GPS are not compatible, so you need a dual mode receiver...

In regards to military vs civilian, all sat systems are dual mode anyways, with the civilian mode set to 10m accuracy and 0.2m/s speed measurement, and the military mode to 10 cm accuracy with unadvertised speed measurement.

[MG23]

Originally Posted by Flying Binghi

This does not bode well for civilian availability of GPS.

GPS is now used widely as a highly accurate time source for electronic systems. Much of the world's infrastructure -- particularly communications -- would fall apart if GPS was to disappear for more than a few days.

[atakacs]

And pretty much every new phone on the market connects to both GLONASS and GPS transparently (as Russia adds an extra tax on all GPS only devices).

Do you have any material to substantiate this ?!

[MarcK]

From cellular-news:

Russia is considering a 25% import tax on any mobile phones that are not capable of connecting to Russia's variant of the GPS navigation system, the glonass satellite network. According to the Russian vice-prime minister, Sergei Ivanov the government has also decided to issue a law, obliging Russian drivers to equip their cars with glonass receivers

Almost all new cell phones support GLONASS along with GPS (See wikipedia)

[riverrock83]

Or look at this list on Wikipedia:
List of Smartphones using GLONASS Navigation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pretty much every phone since middle of last year - so including the iPhone 4S / Samsung S3 / Nokia Lumia _20 (520 / 620 / 820 / 920)

[atakacs]

Interesting - just learned something

[Flying Binghi]

via MG23:
GPS is now used widely as a highly accurate time source for electronic systems. Much of the world's infrastructure -- particularly communications -- would fall apart if GPS was to disappear for more than a few days.

Yes. A nice big fat juicy target for the terrorists..







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[Heathrow Harry]

yeah - terrorists who can simulateously launch a dozen low orbit rockets with a satellite killer on each one - or jam comms across the whole of the world -are going to be ten a penny

[flash8]

Surely glonass would still be available?

[Undertow]

I believe this is another round of LightSquared 4G "GPS Interference Testing" GPS.gov: LightSquared and GPS There's a document (which I can't instantly find) from a month or two ago pre-announcing this round of tests.