So far GNSS mass market applications and services have grown much slower than it was initially forecasted; only car navigators have penetrated significantly in consumer’s life. If we look at market forecasts produced by most consultancy firms by the end of last century, killer consumer market applications such as personal LBS and car telematics should have penetrated much more strongly in our every day routines. It seems that in 2008 there is new chance to see major breakthroughs in both cases.

On the one hand A-GPS, high sensitivity receivers and software receivers will at last facilitate the implementation of GNSS receivers in most mobile phone handsets, even in the cheapest models. The combination of those three technologies allows for low consuming, high availability positioning in mobile devices at negligible production marginal cost. For sure once the base of mobile users equipped with a GNSS capability is large, telecom operators and service providers will start to exploit such capability to offer new, imaginative and low cost LBS.

On the other hand, three GNSS based car telematic services will experiment a major step forward during 2008. Firstly main insurance companies will launch pay per use car insurance schemes during this year. Secondly the park of users of driver assistance and e-call services will reach several tens of millions in the USA and will experiment a major growth in the rest of the world.

Finally and perhaps the most relevant milestone will be the confirmation in Holland for a plan of the first nationwide scale road charging scheme based on GNSS so far in the world. The combination of those three events will bring in 2008 expectatives of killer business cases that will boost car telematics growth. This context will motivate investment in combination of several of those services in the same on board unit and its integration at automotive OEM scale. During 2008 it can be expected the release of several multipurpose GNSS based on board units integrated in the car at OEM scale at extremely low cost.

In 2008, China will likely release a user equipment interface specification for the Beidou system, enabling the design of commercial user equipment. Releasing a system specification early has worked well for European Global Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS), scheduled to be officially operational in 2008. The EGNOS milestone is significant for aviation from a regulatory point of view, however many commercial users have been successfully using EGNOS for years because of the availability of commercial equipment made possible by the early specification release.

Russia plans two launches in 2008, which could lead to as many as 22 orbiting GLONASS satellites, within range of a full 24 satellite constellation (21 broadcasting / 3 spares). This would provide a full measure of redundancy for GPS/GLONASS users and perhaps move GLONASS from an augmentation to an independent positioning system for the first time since 1995.

The GPS system plans to launch the remaining 3 block IIR-M satellites, and take delivery of the first IIF satellite in 2008, filling out more of the constellation with civilian L2 capability using the new signal. The block IIF delivery also sets the stage for third frequency, L5.

All this was made possible by the most important and overlooked milestone of 2007, the GPS architecture evolution program (AEP) ground control upgrade of September 14. This milestone was important because it put into place the capability of controlling the entire feature set of the remaining block II satellites, and overlooked because it changed over from an old mainframe and software to a distributed platform with new software without anyone noticing an operational transition. This demonstrates that maintaining operations during major upgrades is achievable.