It had always been ICAO’s intent that civil user services provided by the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) should be free of charges or user mandates, except for certain optional applications such as fee-bearing accuracy enhancements with performance guarantees. Europe’s Galileo is expected to offer such optional enhancements. But Russia has announced that it will mandate the carriage of receivers for its Glonass constellation in all aircraft on its civil aircraft register. GPS may also be used, but only when integrated with a Glonass receiver and its adjuncts. Publicly, ICAO has acknowledged that Russia’s mandate is within its sovereign rights, but individual national representatives at the ICAO Air Navigation Conference in November were unwilling to comment openly on the Russian position. Possibly, according to one representative, there is an underlying concern that Russia’s action might encourage other GNSS constellation owners to impose mandates. The unnamed but most likely candidate is China, which is making rapid progress toward completion of its GPS-like Compass global system.
Of the four global satellite navigation systems, the U.S. GPS and the Russian Glonass are currently operational, while Europe’s Galileo and China’s Compass are forecast to be fully operational by 2020. However, many observers believe that China–despite being a late starter–will be next to pass the finish line. In 2003 China did, in fact, pay some part of a reported $300 million fee to become a member of the European Galileo consortium, only to find itself quickly excluded from senior decision making. China then withdrew, opting to develop its own constellation.
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