From: George Sherwood 

Remember those heady days back in December 2005, Adam and Phil just crowing
that now, who needs the US GPS system?  We have our own.  I think I noted,
hey it was just a test satellite give me a shout when more happens.  Well
now two years later, nothing has happened and it won't happen any earlier
then 2011 and I doubt that.  By then if GPS III stays on track Galileo will
won't even be a superior system that you have to pay for.  Well I am sure
the EU will be there to bail it out, maybe.

George

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/05/08/galileo.troubles.ap/index.html

Europe's $4.9 billion satellite navigation system is in deep crisis and
will require more public funds to get back on track, the European Union
said.

The Galileo project -- Europe's rival to the U.S. Global Positioning
System, or GPS -- has already seen major delays because the eight companies
in the consortium are arguing over how to divide the workload.

The consortium of companies from France, Germany, Spain, Britain and Italy
has been given until Thursday to set up a joint legal entity to run the
project or risk losing control of it. But German Transport Minister
Wolfgang Tiefensee, speaking on behalf of the EU, said he had "little
hope left" the consortium will end the infighting in time.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/08/galileo_strategic_not_commercial/

Galileo was supposed to be more than half funded by private investors,
principally AENA, Alcatel, EADS, Finmeccanica, Hispasat, Inmarsat, TeleOp,
and Thales. The idea was that the new satellite constellation, in addition
to a basic free service, would offer paid options which would allow these
backers to recoup their money.

But, as already reported by El Reg, when it came time to start signing
serious cheques, the EU's corporate partners didn't feel able to proceed.

The first big problem with selling satellite location services is that the
US Defense Department already offers a pretty good free service from its
Global Positioning System (GPS) birds, which is difficult to compete with.

Galileo could be more accurate than basic GPS, and in time might deliver
better coverage in difficult locations such as so-called "urban
canyons" where much of the sky is blocked out.

But there are ways to squeeze improved accuracy out of GPS already, which
don't necessarily involve paying a large fee. Furthermore, the latest GPS
receivers seem able to pull in signals from some very difficult locations
indeed - perhaps even from between a mobile phone's battery and circuit
board.

On top of this, restricting access to sat-nav services is very difficult,
perhaps even worse than implementing effective DRM on music and video.
Tellingly, the US military gave up even trying to do so with GPS some time
back. In another indication of difficulties ahead, the encryption on
Galileo test platforms was cracked as soon as they were put into orbit.

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