Going Mainstream - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 131

one was French. All were well-known names: Pioneer Electronic, Motorola,
Mitsubishi Denki kk, Caterpillar, Trimble Navigation, Hughes Aircraft, itt,
Magnavox, Nissan Motor kk, Sony, and Thomson csf. 68 Both studies empha-
sized maintaining U.S. leadership in satellite navigation systems and advanc-
ing gps as the internationally accepted standard. That required minimizing
barriers to trade, broadening civilian participation in policy making, and con-
tinuing to provide gps free of direct user fees. However, neither study saw an
alternative to keeping gps—the space and ground segments—under military
control, both for security reasons and because of the need for stable funding.
The user segment—receivers, applications, and services—was already “effec-
tively in the hands of the private sector,” the rand study noted. 69
Both studies offered eye-catching market projections for gps equipment
sales. The rand study cited a U.S. gps Industry Council estimate of 50 per-
cent annual growth that would carry worldwide sales from $510 million in 1993
to $8.47 billion in 2000. 70 Car navigation devices and gps- equipped comput-
ers and mobile phones accounted for more than 60 percent of that total, while
military sales represented just 1 percent. The napa/nrc study surveyed
seventy-nine companies and arrived at an even more optimistic forecast, pro-
jecting that an estimated $2 billion global market in 1995 would grow to at least
$11 billion by 2000 and $31 billion by 2005. 71 One chart in the napa/nrc study
suggested that turning off Selective Availability could significantly boost com-
mercial growth.
The two sets of recommendations differed most over the contentious policy
of degrading the civilian signal. The napa/nrc study recommended turning
off Selective Availability immediately and deactivating it after three years. It
based this recommendation on economic projections, on the fact that continu-
ing to degrade the signal hindered international adoption of gps, and on
impending competition from Russia's nearly complete glonass system, which
lacked the security feature, giving users a more accurate signal.
The rand study took a more cautious approach, concluding that commer-
cial gps growth depended more on declining prices than better accuracy. It
argued against turning off Selective Availability until the Pentagon was certain
the military had developed effective countermeasures both to deny civilian
gps and glonass signals to adversaries during hostilities and to ensure its
own ability to acquire and use the military signal in an environment where sig-
nals are being jammed. Even if were turned off during peacetime, rand rec-
ommended retaining Selective Availability as a wartime option.