Industrial players of GNSS - Service operator
From INVESaTWIKI
Industrial players of GNSS - Service operator
There is a variety of navigation service providers in the satellite navigation downstream industry. By the integration and management of
navigation, information and communication, they are able to provide to the customer a huge number of value added navigation services,
e.g. vehicle off-board navigation, personal mobility aids, air traffic management and surveillance, etc.. In Europe, there are a few major
players in the service segment, e.g. Thales in the aeronautics and high end navigation segment, the ETC consortium for road tolling, or
Tegaron for car navigation. In some typical mass market segments, e.g. mobile communication, the market is still not really developed and
very fragmented with a lot of small enterprises.
The variety of interfaces to different industries which the service provider has to handle (different communication and navigation systems, information
sources and updates) indicates the challenges of the whole navigation downstream industry.
One challenge is to identify the right communication system provider for a value added service. A “location based service” is only possible
with an appropriate communication link, in order to transmit location based information to the user.
In case of the mass market segments, particularly the personal navigation market, the most suitable link in many cases will be a mobile
phone network, because there is already a good infrastructure in Europe and the communication fees for end users are moderate. Although
there are all necessary tools available and the market forecasts look extremely promising, one wonders why this market has not evolved
yet. This is even more astonishing in front of the desperate search of mobile phone service providers for communication traffic in their systems.
In case of many professional applications where a lot of communication traffic takes place current communication costs and partially insufficient
availability and reliability of SMS services via mobile phone networks may have a hindering impact on market development. A solution
of the communication problem must be found for such frequented or demanding applications, and this could be an outcome of a joint effort
of the involved navigation industry.
This problem is even more serious for security related (e.g. police, fire brigades, rescue forces, ATM) or military navigation applications.
Here, an infrastructure must be available, which is reliable, secure and independent of (public) ground networks which are too vulnerable
against natural disasters or hostile aggressions. Looking into the direction of a European security policy, nothing is available which could
serve future European demands which come up with the increasing use of satellite navigation in this segment. A joint effort of the concerned
industry, backed by a strong European policy could help to solve the problem.
Another important aspect which a service provider has to deal with is the provision of information, because this is in the end, what he
sells to the customer. Special attention should be given here to common databases which are the basis for a number of value added navigation
services. In the past decades, a lot of information, which is of common public interest like maps, transport networks, etc. has been collected
and digitised. The problem is, that most of this information, except some official geographical maps, is completely spread over the
countries and communes, and there is normally neither standardisation nor interfaces.
But, if the mass market should be opened and the end customer should to recognise a real benefit in the introduction of navigation, the collection
and standardisation of publicly interesting information is probably mandatory. Currently, there is one meaningful effort which aims to
do so, the Open GIS Consortium, which has been driven by US intelligence services. Today, some 258 members from industry, government
agencies and universities, spread over Asia/Pacific, Europe, North and South America regions, participate in that process. The introduction
of a regulative process in Europe and a joint industry effort could help to develop successful and beneficial information sources for the navigation
community. [1]
References
[1] G.Dippel-Hens (GALILEAN working group report)
"GNSS business issues".
