Galileo Hesitance Hurts EU LBS Liftoff?

Following a UK National Physics Laboratory meeting on Jan 18, there were a bunch of rumblings coming out of Europe this week about how they cannot and should not rely on the US GPS system for mobile location-based services – one such remark was made from my former Professor Jonathan Raper.  Carriers in Europe agree, but suggest waiting for Galileo is hindering market development and their objectives.  Meanwhile, device manufacturers are hesitant to release GPS-based devices waiting for Galileo, so the projections for location-enabled phones is less than I would have expected in comparison to US shipment numbers over the last 6 years.

Remember this bit of history – Europe launched LBS first back on 1999 with low-accuracy and there was little demand and therefore limited market success.  At that time, the US looked to Europe for creative application ideas because they were there.  However, the US lagged overall on commercial deployments, concentrating efforts on 911 and high accuracy.  Now, the US has millions of GPS phones shipped, with hundreds of thousands of subscribers using commercial applications.  The US has leapfrogged Europe.  It’s now 2007, and Europe is moving ahead with high accuracy following the US lead.  We have flip-flopped twice already.  Ready for a third?  I saw evidence this week from the social software community that 2007 could usher in high-demand for CellID-based low-accuracy in the US, where it is now unpopular in Europe.  Seesaw…

This entry was contributed by Jonathan Spinney