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| **PNT MEDIA ITEMS**                                                   |
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| [**www.pnt.gov**](http://www.pnt.gov/)                                |
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Oct. 1, 2007

**Foundations Laid For Galileo Ground Station**

AFP, October 1, 2007

Construction of the Italian ground control station for planned European
sat nav constellation Galileo is underway, despite the controversy
surrounding the project. The Italian station will be located in the
central district of Fucino, and will work alongside a German facility to
be built in Munich.

Galileo has until lately been mired in a dispute over funding, with a
planned private sector contribution to the construction phase withheld.
Industry could not see a way to directly generate revenue from Galileo.

However, nine days ago European officials in Brussels proposed a plan to
fund the project from public coffers, largely by diverting it from
\"unspent\" farm subsidy budgets. The Eurocrats\' plan still has to be
approved at the political level, but this will involve no great pain as
the funds are already assigned to the EU by national governments.

It now appears that Italian national aerospace firm Finmeccanica is
confident Galileo will now move forward. The Fucino ground station is
being built by Telespazio, a joint venture two-thirds of which is
Finmeccanica\'s. The other partner is France\'s Thales.

\"The big problem at the beginning was to find funds, but now the
European Commission (EC) has decided to take care of the financing,\"
Finmeccanica CEO Pier Francesco Guarguaglini said. \"If we proceed very
quickly it will be worth it,\" he told reporters at the Fucino
foundation-laying ceremony yesterday. \"Otherwise, we will waste our
money and our time.\"

Guarguaglini was reportedly unconcerned regarding the commercial
viability of Galileo, which could struggle to raise revenue as long as
the civil signal of the US military GPS constellation remains available
for free. Under the EC draft plan, commercial partners, including
Finmeccanica, would still pay the running costs of the system after it
is built with taxpayer cash.

\"The precision of this system is much better than GPS,\" he said. \"At
the end, we will have 30 satellites and 30 means more precision.\"

In fact, at present GPS has 31 satellites, but the US Air Force is only
required to keep 24 operational. **Budget forecasts suggest the GPS
constellation could thin out significantly as Galileo becomes
operational, though user bodies have urged the US government to maintain
a minimum of 30 sats.** New Block III GPS platforms soon to come online
will offer capability comparable to that of Galileo.

In the end, of course, Guarguaglini and his fellow members of the
European industrial consortium don\'t need to be too worried. European
taxpayers will pay them handsomely to build Galileo, and if they can\'t
make a profit running it afterwards nobody can force them to keep on
taking a loss. And indeed, it seems unlikely that the governments of
Europe would simply abandon their multi-billion hardware investment
should such a situation occur.

**EU nations to weigh future of Galileo satellite navigation, technology
institute**

1 October 2007

[Associated Press Newswires](javascript:void(0))

LUXEMBOURG\-- The EU nations will debate Tuesday the future of the
**Galileo** satellite navigation project and a proposed European
technology institute \-- two pricey projects on which much prestige
hinges but whose funding remain unclear.

**Galileo** was envisaged as a rival for the U.S.-run Global Positioning
System and touted as a key high-technology venture for the EU. But it
stalled after a group of eight companies from France, Germany, Spain,
Britain and Italy charged with developing the system disagreed on how to
share the work.

The technology institute is seen by the European Commission, the EU\'s
executive arm, as another project crucial for closing the high-tech gap
with the United States and Japan. But it is plagued by funding
uncertainty.

At an EU telecommunications ministers meeting, Jacques Barrot, the EU
transport commissioner, will defend his plan to make \$3.3 billion
available from the EU budget to rescue **Galileo** and another \$427
million to launch the technology institute. Barrot proposes to use
unspent EU agricultural and administrative funds for **Galileo** after
private money evaporated when the consortium charged with developing the
system failed to make headway with the project.

\"**Galileo** is a strategic project for the EU. We don\'t want to
depend on the GPS signal, as the United States can step in at any time
(and disconnect satellite signals) for military reasons,\" Barrot told a
European Parliament committee recently. But Britain, Germany and the
Netherlands have reservations about devoting EU funds to **Galileo**,
the price of which has been put at between \$4.7 billion and \$5
billion.

German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee fears that a proposed new
tender for companies to work on the satellite system will lead to
renewed infighting among EU member states over who does what, and that
German businesses \-- which were represented in the original consortium
\-- could lose out. **Galileo** would comprise 30 satellites, to be
launched by 2013, beaming radio signals to receiving devices on the
ground, helping users pinpoint their locations.

Interoperable with the 24-satellite GPS it would more than double
existing GPS coverage, provide navigation for anybody from motorists to
pilots and improve coverage in northern Europe and in big cities, where
skyscrapers can block signals. **Galileo** would also be more exact than
GPS, with precision of up to one meter (3.3 feet), compared with five
meters (16.4 feet) with GPS technology.

But only one **Galileo** satellite has been launched, in December 2005.
The second missed its autumn 2006 launch date after it short-circuited
in final testing. The proposed European Institute of Technology is
similarly hobbled by money problems. Although the European Parliament
gave its preliminary go-ahead to the project last week, doubts remain
about funding for the institute and where it put it.

The institute, designed to rival the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, is expected to cost some \$3 billion to set up. It would
consist of a small, central governing body in charge of finances and
research strategy and a number of so-called \"knowledge communities\"
\-- research and education centers located around the EU.

The EU executive secured \$375 million for the startup phase of the
institute, and it has been in touch with major companies about possible
financial contributions. But no private funding has yet been secured.

**European Commission Wants Public Funds for Galileo**

1 October 2007

[Telecommunications Reports](javascript:void(0))

The European Commission has proposed to provide public funding for the
deployment phase of the **Galileo** satellite navigation project in the
wake of failed contract negotiations regarding the project\'s deployment
and commercial operation. The commission said the **Galileo** project is
\"vital for the independence of Europe\" and that public investment in
the project would enable Europe to \"emerge in this area and retain a
large share of the radionavigation market.\"

The commission said that the failure of concession contract negotiations
for the deployment and commercial operation of **Galileo**, and the
\"subsequent question mark raised over the plans\" for the program, have
made it necessary to change the commission\'s initial funding plans,
which had called for only partial public funding.

\"The proposed regulation provides for the responsibility for the
deployment phase of **Galileo** to be fully assumed by the European
Community acting on its own,\" the commission said. The project would
require 3.4 billion euros (U.S. \$4.71 billion) from Jan. 1 of this year
through the end of 2013.

\"I am still convinced that Europe needs **Galileo**,\" said Jacques
Barrott, vice president of the European Commission. \"Today I have come
up with all the facts and figures to enable the European Parliament and
ministers to take the necessary decisions on the program and its funding
by the end of the year.\"

**My GPS is gellin\' like Magellan**

30 September 2007

New Jersey [Courier-Post](javascript:void(0))

About 12,500 miles above orbits a constellation of at least 24
satellites with the primary purpose of beaming precise position
information back to Earth.

Armed with a receiver, anyone can use the data from a minimum of three
of the satellites to obtain very accurate coordinates of where they are
on the planet. The **Global Positioning System** (GPS) is an amazing
service that the Air Force\'s 50th Space Wing manages for the public
good. It has helped geologists study the shifting of large land masses,
engineers have used it to place immense construction projects within
inches of the desired location, travelers rely on it for safe flights,
but most of us love that it can find the nearest pizza joint in a
different city.

I usually don\'t need GPS, but at least three times a year I get very
lost and having one would save tremendous aggravation. In the past, GPS
receivers were too expensive for the few times I needed one, so I
resisted. They typically were in the \$500 to \$1,000 range. However, in
the last year or so they have become increasingly inexpensive and buying
one doesn\'t have to break the bank.

Cheaper components and increased competition have not only made the
latest generation more affordable, but better than ever. Quick fact:Did
you know that buying a new car with GPS factory installed will actually
depreciate it by 1 percent to 3 percent more than one without. It\'s
true. Current GPS technologies are evolving rapidly and people don\'t
want dated GPS units integrated into the dash (think of old Zach Morris
brick phones). That \$2,000 upgrade two years ago is easily matched or
even beaten by an entry-level \$250 unit today. Further proof comes from
Toyota and Hyundai, who will begin offering GPS units in place of
factory installed options later this year.

When shopping for a GPS unit, two things to look for are a SiRF Star III
chip and that the device has enough storage for all the maps. Everything
else is a matter of preference.

The SiRF Star III chip is the benchmark for performance in getting and
maintaining a GPS location fix. Once you have your coordinates on Earth,
it is up to the software to map it for you. This is where personal
preference and features differentiate GPS units. For instance, there are
two major companies \-- NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas \-- that provide the maps
to manufacturers. Some say the latter is superior in Europe while the
former covers North America better.

I personally can\'t say one is overwhelmingly better than the other and
wouldn\'t allow it to sway a decision too much. Other features include
spoken street names instead of generic spoken directions, more points of
interest, Bluetooth speakerphone for your cell phone, music player with
FM transmitter and subscription based services such as weather and
traffic. You\'ll get more features as you go up in price, so make sure
you need them because it won\'t draw your map or provide directions any
better.

For people with modest needs, like myself, I recommend the TomTom One.
It\'s a thin and basic GPS unit with no internal moving parts, like a
hard drive, to damage. Containing maps for all of the United Stated and
Canada, it\'s all I really need wrapped up with a Paris Hilton-simple
touchscreen \-- and all for less than \$250.