[A-List] US imperialism: satellite technology

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

US and EU set to agree on navigation networks
By Judy Dempsey in Brussels
Financial Times: February 3 2004

The US and European Union are poised to end a three-year dispute over rival
satellite navigation networks despite failure to clinch an agreement after
intense negotiations in Washington at the weekend.

A deal, expected to be reached this month in Brussels, would mean Europe's
Galileo system and the Pentagon's Global Positioning System will not end up
as competitors. Instead, they would be capable of inter-operability, with
consumers having access to both.

This would be particularly welcomed in the US-led Nato military alliance,
whose members could have been forced to choose between the two when they
upgrade their guided weapons systems.

"We are nearly there," a senior EU diplomat said on Monday. "The Americans
are still making some demands but a compromise is in the works." "We are
optimistic," said a US official. "It would show that both sides of the
Atlantic can work together."

The first breakthrough came last November in The Hague. The US acknowledged
the EU's "public regulated service" (PRS) code, which provides a highly
secure and sophisticated satellite navigation system for its subscribers,
would not compromise the Pentagon's M, or military, code.

At issue was the frequency band of the M-code, the Pentagon's military
network supposed to be operating in 2012, and Europe's PRS system, which
will in effect lie on top of one another.

The EU insisted it could not move its band in any radical manner, since the
high-precision/security aspects of that band had been one of the main
attractive features to subscribers, particularly the security
establishments. US negotiators received assurances that Galileo would not
interfere with the M-code.

During the Washington talks, US negotiators questioned the frequency bands
for Galileo's "open signal", the commercial signal that provides a
high-precision service for subscribers, in areas ranging from banking
security to air traffic control and natural disasters. EU officials on
Monday said they were reluctant to compromise on this frequency as it could
undermine its usefulness for its subscribers. The US also said it wanted
some right of veto over European improvements to its signals.