INSIDE THE COMMUNITY

United States and Europe Talk Cooperation

During the first months of 2000, the European Union (EU) and the United States have entered a series of discussions about establishing a cooperative agreement on Galileo.

Negotiations with the United States have thus far focused on Galileo sharing the GPS L1 and L2 frequencies, with the EU asking earlier this year to overlay signals on the L1 and L2 frequencies. One Washington source said the United States is intensely looking at sharing the two frequencies, but needs more time to make a decision, particularly in light of the broad potential effect on users if there is any problem. During the negotiations, held 9­10 March in Brussels, Belgium, the United States offered to allow the EU to overlay a Galileo signal on the new L5 frequency. The EU declined, according to a source, saying they would pursue their own frequency allocation adjacent to the L5 signal for that portion of its service.

At the upcoming World Radio Conference (WRC), where international allocations of broadcast frequencies takes place, the United States plans to oppose a more extensive allocation of satellite navigation frequencies beyond that needed for L5, claiming that the larger allocation is unnecessary. Both Galileo and GPS-related frequency requests will be discussed at the WRC, being held in Istanbul, Turkey, from 8 May through 2 June.

There has, however, been a quiet shift in the position of the United States, which has offered a compromise to the EU that would support an allocation of spectrum to allow for both the 24 MHz for the L5 signal and for a separate 24-MHz band for Galileo. The United States formed the compromise within the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL), an organisation that helps coordinate telecommunications systems throughout the Americas.

The Americans, however, have not officially changed their individual position that 48 MHz is an unnecessary large allocation. In fact, said one Washington source, U.S. position papers opposing the broader allocation of frequencies have intentionally not been updated.

According to two European sources, if an agreement on some kind of frequency sharing arrangement cannot be reached quickly, then the EU may shift its search for spectrum out of the L-band used by GPS and focus on the higher-frequency C-band. Such a decision would certainly constrain the ability of the two systems to be interoperable and also affect Galileo's capability to be backward compatible with existing equipment. According to one source, a decision to shift to the C-band could come as early as May. A mid-term program review is scheduled for May, at which time some options for Galileo will likely be eliminated.

Time is becoming a critical factor for the EU for another reason as well. The EU must decide by December on whether to proceed with the system and, so far, no move has been made to extend that deadline, according to one European source. To make the necessary progress on the design work, the EU needs to have frequency decisions in place soon.

During talks, the United States has sought a different kind of agreement with the EU regarding Galileo; one about policy principles for cooperation and tying any technical cooperation to EU willingness to accept the overall policy principles, which include interoperability, no direct user fees, and open markets.

"We are open to cooperation if it makes sense and is in our interest," explained Jeffrey P. Bialos, head of the U.S delegation to the GPS/Galileo consultations. "Such cooperation would be on the basis of these principles."

At the March meetings, the American delegation suggested that an agreement could be done in a phased approach. The most urgent areas, such as frequencies and principles, could be agreed to first, followed by more a detailed agreement on operational areas such as exchanges of data. One source said the Europeans were cautious but seemed to like the idea. Another noted that while the EU delegation was open to some of the principles, they did not find all of them acceptable.

Public-Private Question. In addition to frequency questions, also looming on the agenda are three issues dealing with the Public Private Partnership (PPP) being proposed to help finance Galileo. The first is a request to speed up the effort at structuring the PPP.

In addition to five smaller proposals, two comprehensive proposals for the structure of the PPP have been submitted to the Galileo Programme Office in the European Commission's Directorate General for Transport and Energy (DG-TREN): one by the Siderus consortium, which includes Thomson and Racal; the other by the Galileo Industries alliance, which includes Alenia, DASA, Alcatel, and Matra Marconi, which will be joined by a Spanish space consortium now being formed. DG-TREN staff met with the sponsors of the smaller proposals and with the Siderus and Galileo Industries groups in late March and early April. These proposals are now being reviewed and may be combined in some way as the effort enters its second phase.

Although the EC introduced the PPP concept with a nominal 50/50 sharing of costs by public and private sectors, the EC is exploring a variety of PPP financial models with different proportions and timelines for when the public and private investments would be made. These models were described in an April 5 presentation to the Geomatic Week conference in Barcelona, Spain, by Birgette Holt Andersen, an economist and science officer for the EC DG-TREN Galileo office. They range from a 100-percent public share for the first few years to a more equitable allocation from the outset that shifts toward the private sector as Galileo service revenues begin flowing.

The resulting first draft of the PPP structure was originally due by the end of July, but some EU Member States and the investment community want the draft finished by the end of June instead so that potential backers can see the guidelines within which the private sector will be asked to work.

An overall positive decision to proceed with implementing Galileo appears increasingly certain. In her comments at the Geomatic Week conference, DG-TREN's Andersen said "Whatever happens, Galileo will be a reality. It might not be a PPP; it might be another thing. The important thing is that nothing can stop it now."

Also driving the effort to speed up the drafting process is a request for political decisions to be made by the EU member governments. The decisions need to be made at the European Council of Ministers meeting in June, according to EC representative Martine Mamlouk, civil administrator to the director of research and scientific and technical affairs, who spoke before a meeting of the Civil GPS Service Interface Committee in Fairfax, Virginia March 28 and 29.

Investor pressure may also accelerate the schedule for deployment of the system itself. Mamlouk said in her speech that, if some of the PPP proposals were followed, deployment of the system could be pushed up to as early as 2005­2006 from its current date of 2008.

As vital as the frequency issue and schedule are to the viability of Galileo, an agreement on liability issues may be just as important, according to one European source. The matter has been brought up in negotiations between the EU and the United States, with Europe seeking an expansion in the system that would encompass GPS. The United States in the past, however, has taken the position that it is satisfied with the current liability regime, under which it enjoys a great deal of immunity.

The EU hopes to market the Galileo signals as guaranteed to some degree and is studying regional augmentation systems and independent monitoring of the Galileo service as part of liability coverage. But it is unclear how such liability coverage will be workable if the United States does not also agree to assume a level of liability and work with Europe on, for example, monitoring each system so it can be determined which one was the source of any problem.

Canada May Join Galileo

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) expects to soon sign an agreementthat will make it a formal part of the definition phase of the GalileoSat program, the portion of the Galileo studies being conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Once the agreement is signed, said Stephane Lessard, CSA's head of international relations, then the equivalent of e2 million in Canadian funding will be released. The projects CSA will work on have yet to be determined, but participation would likely take the form of the Canadian government funding of domestic companies or research centres to participate in ongoing ESA studies.

After the studies are done at the end of this year, Canada will decide, as will ESA, whether to proceed with Galileo. If Canada decides to join in the development phase, some form of investment in Galileo would be involved. The scope of the investment depends on the level of Canadian industrial participation, explained Lessard. Although CSA will be the only agency participating in the definition phase, other Canadian agencies are currently studying Galileo and might join in at that point.

Canada is interested in the industrial and commercial aspects of GalileoSat, Lessard said, specifically in the opportunity to develop technologies and opportunities for its industry, including the space and receiver segments. There are also user benefits, he said, noting additional coverage plus the possibility of some sort of Galileo ground facility in North America that Canada might participate in.

Lessard characterised CSA's participation in Galileo as the continuation of 20 years of cooperation with ESA. The United States has not weighed in on Canada's participation, he said, though they have been kept informed. He made it very clear that Canada has no interest in jeopardising the benefits it receives from GPS.

Canada is significantly vested in the GPS system, he said, and pointed out that it has become more and more of an integral part of his country's economy.

Galileo Looks Outside

Other nations are joining the Galileo effort as well. Earlier this year, the Steering Committee for Galileo, which manages the Galileo effort by coordinating work done by both the European Commission (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA), approved criteria to be used to more formally integrate countries outside of the European Union (EU) into Galileo management by making them formal observers. Switzerland and Norway, both members of ESA but not the EU, have already signed on in an observer role.

There are other countries waiting to participate as well, said Pietro Lo Galbo, who is currently head of navigation at ESA. These countries may not be EU members, but have a vested interest in Galileo for no other reason than the fact that it is planned as a global system, Lo Galbo said. States admitted to the Steering Committee will be expected to support the Galileo initiative, he said, explaining that will mean they should also support the project politically.

The new states will join in on the ongoing debate within the Steering Committee on the extent to which the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) should be integrated into Galileo. EGNOS is a European GPS augmentation system, roughly equivalent to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's Wide Area Augmentation System.

EGNOS is under a different contractor and run under different conditions, but Galileo will need the services of something similar to EGNOS for integrity, said Lo Galbo. The EU would like to see the in-vestment in EGNOS utilised as fully as possible, he explained, but there may be better ways to achieve the same ends.

"The question is how much of the EGNOS infrastructure could be reused. We could reuse all of it, including the geostationary [satellite transponders] but there are technical solutions for broadcasting an integrity message from the constellation itself," he said. "One of the issues will be to look at the various technical options for integrating EGNOS and to what extent the infrastructure will be reused."