THREE years of squabbling between the US and the European Union over the EU鈥檚 Galileo satellite positioning system ended on Wednesday with Europe agreeing to use a slightly less accurate signal than it planned.
Though GPS, the US Global Positioning System is open and free to use, European governments want an alternative. The US has always opposed this. The final stumbling block concerned Galileo鈥檚 public signal, which the US said was too close to a planned military one of its own known as the M-Code. In a war, the US would jam non-military signals to prevent the enemy using satellite navigation, and it claimed jamming Galileo鈥檚 signal would interfere with M-Code. Galileo will now use an alternative signal.
But it should still be more accurate than GPS, with a resolution down to 1 metre. The US in turn has agreed to make the two systems interoperable, so that receivers can use signals from both Galileo and GPS satellites.
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