Is Commercial GPS Affected by War?

N E W  Y O R K, April 3 -- If you've paid any attention at all to the coverage of the war in Iraq, you can't help but notice the critical role the Global Positioning System is playing in helping soldiers, Marines and pilots find their way, and steering bombs and cruise missiles to their targets.

But the GPS system is also a vital — and growing — piece of business infrastructure. Consider for a moment that nearly every telecommunications network, from wireless phone networks to the data networks that make up the Internet, relies on the highly accurate clocks on the 27 GPS satellites to keep its internal clocks correct, which helps data flow efficiently.

With civilian GPS, construction site managers can precisely determine where their crews should dig. Many farmers rely on GPS equipment to steer their tractors. Ground shippers like FedEx and United Parcel Service are increasingly turning to the GPS system for navigation.

But it is a military system after all, and that has something to do with a few curious rumors that surfaced in the weeks leading up to the war with Iraq, which suggested that the U.S. Department of Defense would somehow mess with GPS with the onset of war.

Increased Accuracy, Increased Sales

Prior to 2000, civilian GPS signals were deliberately degraded, leaving nonmilitary equipment with a margin of error of about 300 feet. But that year, then-President Bill Clinton ordered the so-called selective availability, or SA, feature turned off. That made the systems the business community uses accurate to within 30 feet and sparked a lot of the increased usage we see today.

Sales of civilian GPS equipment hit $4.7 billion last year, according to analyst Ron Stearns of Frost & Sullivan in San Jose, Calif., up from $3.9 billion in 2002. By 2008, nonmilitary sales could be $10.8 billion.

So far, civilian signal accuracy has held, even after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan; SA has remained off during the war in Iraq.