Where Are We? - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 173

differential augmentation system, and a new operational control system. 199 A
2006 agreement gave India access to glonass military signals and gave the
Russian program a cash infusion. 200 Russia offered India full joint partner sta-
tus in mid-2012. 201 Russian efforts at international cooperation have included
making glonass signals compatible with gps signals and committing to have
every glonass satellite by 2020 broadcast code division multiple access (cdma)
signals, the format gps and other systems use (see chapter 5), along with its
native format, frequency division code modulation (fdma). However, Russia
sometimes plays hardball. In a move presumably backed by President Vladi-
mir Putin, Moscow threatened in mid-2012 to block imports of mobile phones
and other devices that do not have dual gps/glonass chipsets. 202
The European Union's Galileo system is about five years behind schedule.
Proposals for a civilian-run European alternative to gps predate by a decade
the 1993 Maastricht Treaty establishing the eu. The European Space Agency
(esa), with eleven members in 1983, proposed a constellation of twenty-four
satellites at a time when budget woes had U.S. officials scaling gps back to
eighteen. 203 esa officials thought they could build their system for about $2.5
billion, half the gps estimate, and begin launching satellites in 1988, the year
U.S. officials anticipated completing gps. 204 By the early 1990s European plans
envisioned a public-private partnership building a thirty-satellite constellation
offering a mix of free basic service and fee-based precision landing guidance. 205
After eu leaders in Brussels, Belgium, approved the first funds in 1999 for a
$3.06 billion program cosponsored with esa, it took five years to reach an agree-
ment with U.S. military officials, who were concerned about Galileo's signals
interfering with gps military signals. 206 China invested €200 million (about
$270 million) in Galileo in 2003 but complained that it felt shut out of decision
making after private sector funding collapsed. The eu rescued the program
with public funds, which tended to elevate political and security concerns. 207
China launched its first Beidou (sometimes called Compass) satellite in 2007,
apparently seeking to leverage negotiations with the eu, but talks failed. 208 In
April 2009 China launched its second Beidou satellite, effectively ending its
relationship with the eu, and announced that the Beidou system would use
some radio frequencies Galileo had reserved for encrypted governmental,
public safety, and possible military use. 209 It was an aggressive but legal move.
The United Nations International Telecommunications Union, which allocates
radio spectrum for satellites, grants priority to the first country establishing
services at a specific frequency. 210 It is unclear whether the eu could have sal-