<story><title>The World Economy Runs on GPS. It Needs a Backup Plan</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-25/the-world-economy-runs-on-gps-it-needs-a-backup-plan</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jpatokal</author><text>Apparently Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou don&amp;#x27;t count, because the backups for this backbone of the &lt;i&gt;global&lt;/i&gt; economy have to be American?&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;GLONASS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;GLONASS&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Galileo_(satellite_navigation)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Galileo_(satellite_navigation)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;BeiDou_Navigation_Satellite_System&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;BeiDou_Navigation_Satellite_Sy...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I do wonder how many of these are supported by common hardware like mobile phones, anybody have a pointer to a compatibility list?  I know the Chinese government had been prodding its manufacturers to add BeiDou support pretty hard.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thermodynthrway</author><text>All satellite nagivation systems are trivially jammable. They use DSSS to spread out codes and resist jamming but signal levels are still so weak at the surface it&amp;#x27;s trivial to block.&lt;p&gt;Most phones are compatible with GPS(US) +Galileo(Europe)+Glonass(Russia). Most of them also report which constellation the locks are from. GPS status and toolbox on android is a fun way to see what you&amp;#x27;re connected to.&lt;p&gt;What we need, and will probably get soon, is inertial guidance based on laser ring or fibre optic gyros in mobiles. You get a location fix every week or so and it starts out much more accurate than gps.&lt;p&gt;The US system was first by maybe a decade or more so support is nearly universal. The other systems are largely copycat, purposely compatible with existing GPS receivers.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s why it seems like we&amp;#x27;re relying on the US for GPS, they invented it and had a full constellation in orbit before anyone else even thought of it.&lt;p&gt;Of course we&amp;#x27;re on the internet which was also invented by the US govt so I&amp;#x27;m not so surprised why 
&amp;quot;the backups for this backbone of the global economy have to be American&amp;quot; in reference to GPS at least</text></comment>
<story><title>The World Economy Runs on GPS. It Needs a Backup Plan</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-25/the-world-economy-runs-on-gps-it-needs-a-backup-plan</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jpatokal</author><text>Apparently Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou don&amp;#x27;t count, because the backups for this backbone of the &lt;i&gt;global&lt;/i&gt; economy have to be American?&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;GLONASS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;GLONASS&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Galileo_(satellite_navigation)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Galileo_(satellite_navigation)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;BeiDou_Navigation_Satellite_System&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;BeiDou_Navigation_Satellite_Sy...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I do wonder how many of these are supported by common hardware like mobile phones, anybody have a pointer to a compatibility list?  I know the Chinese government had been prodding its manufacturers to add BeiDou support pretty hard.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>davidcuddeback</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;I do wonder how many of these are supported by common hardware like mobile phones, anybody have a pointer to a compatibility list?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;iPhone X specs list &amp;quot;GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and QZSS&amp;quot; [1]. I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure they&amp;#x27;ve supported multiple GNSS systems for a few generations.&lt;p&gt;I know I&amp;#x27;ve seen several GNSS modules from u-blox that support multiple GNSS systems as well. One example, NEO-M8, supports &amp;quot;BeiDou, Galileo, GLONASS, GPS &amp;#x2F; QZSS.&amp;quot; [2]&lt;p&gt;I know I&amp;#x27;ve also seen several cheap GPS modules that are GPS-only, so multiple GNSS support isn&amp;#x27;t ubiquitous, but it&amp;#x27;s probably ahead of IPv6 adoption.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.apple.com&amp;#x2F;iphone-x&amp;#x2F;specs&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.apple.com&amp;#x2F;iphone-x&amp;#x2F;specs&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.u-blox.com&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;product&amp;#x2F;neo-m8-series&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.u-blox.com&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;product&amp;#x2F;neo-m8-series&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>