1995 Congressional HearingsMilitary Space Systems
1995 Congressional HearingsPage 1 TOP OF DOCPLEASE NOTE: The following transcript is a portion of the official hearing record of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Additional material pertinent to this transcript may be found on the web site of the Committee at [http://www.house.gov/transportation]. Complete hearing records are available for review at the Committee offices and also may be purchased at the U.S. Government Printing Office.
PREVENTING DELAYS AND COST OVERRUNS IN THE FAA'S NEW GLOBAL POSITIONING (SATELLITE NAVIGATION) SYSTEM
THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 1995
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Aviation,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:35 a.m., in Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John J. Duncan, Jr. (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. DUNCAN. Good morning, and I would like to welcome everyone to the hearing this morning on the Global Positioning System. Today's hearing will focus on this new Global Positioning System known as GPS and certainly something that I think almost everyone feels has the potential of being a revolutionary system.
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I want to say first that I applaud the FAA's efforts so far to modernize our Nation's air navigation system by the use of satellites. Satellites represent the cutting edge of new technology and certainly that I suppose it is an understatement to say even that.
As a matter of fact, the military has used satellites quite effectively in many cases, including the Gulf War and other modes of transportation are beginning to move toward satellite navigation as well.
It is only right, I think, that aviation be in the forefront of this effort. However, many people are concerned that when it comes to high-tech modernization efforts, the FAA's record has been spotty at best.
The Advanced Automation System is probably the prime example that immediately comes to mind as a high-tech system for which much was promised, but little has been delivered. The result of the delays in this system has been billions in cost overruns that were stemmed only by eliminating many of the system's best features. Billions in cost overruns. Too often in the past we have taken the FAA's word for it, which they told us that everything was under control; that everything was all right.
Only after the fact did we learn that FAA management had not paid sufficient attention to problems as they developed. The result, as I mentioned, has been huge cost overruns and delays. This time we want to make sure that these unneeded costs are not repeated.
We simply cannot afford this. The GAO has already raised the red flag with respect to warnings and has issued a report warning that the FAA may not be able to meet its deadlines for the GPS program. The subcommittee takes this warning seriously and is dealing with it in two ways.
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First of all, in the short term we are holding this hearing to focus on the potential problem and ensure that it gets attention from the top levels of the FAA.
Secondly, in the longer term we are working on FAA reform legislation that will provide for an administrator who will be there for the long term and who will be able to focus on the day-to-day operation of the agency.
Although it is the risk of delays and huge cost overruns that prompted this hearing, there are several other issues that deserve the attention of the subcommittee and I am sure will be referred to by some of the witnesses.
One question is who should control GPS. This has implications far beyond aviation. Although the satellites were originally launched by the military, witnesses today will discuss their report urging that a high level civilian board should now manage the program.
Another question is the impact of the FAA's program on private sector businesses that already offer a service similar to that which the FAA's program will provide. It would disturb me greatly in FAA's offer to provide the GPS service for free ended up putting people out of business.
It is my understanding that this potential would be avoided if the GPS signal was encrypted and we intend to ask about that and look into that to some extent this morning. However, we only want to do this if it won't further delay and cause problems and added cost for the FAA program.
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Other questions include when will the taxpayers see the savings from this program that will result from the shutdown of the current navigation aids that the GPS will replace. When will FAA establish the landing procedures that will enable the aircraft to take full advantage of the GPS? And is there any risk that terrorists could play havoc with the aviation system by jamming the GPS signal? That question, a serious question about security, was raised in a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago or a year and a half ago and we need to look into that.
It will be noted that FAA is not on the witness list today. That is at their request. They felt that it would be better to wait until the contract was awarded before appearing before the subcommittee and I understood that request and respect it and have agreed to that.
However, the fact that the contract award has already been delayed by four months indicates that the concerns that prompted this hearing are well-founded.
It is the plan of the subcommittee to have a second day of hearings in order to give the FAA administrator a chance to respond to the questions and concerns that are raised here today. We will do that soon after the FAA contract award as the congressional schedule permits.
I now wish to recognize my good friend, the former Chairman of the full committee, Mr. Mineta, for any statement that he wishes to make.
Page 5 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCMr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for your continued leadership of this panel.
As all of you may know, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Oberstar's very close friend passed away so he had to return to the district and is not able to be here today. At today's hearings we will get an update on the progress that the FAA is making in its program to make GPS the primary means of navigation for the aviation system.
The importance of this program cannot be overemphasized. GPS can save FAA billions of dollars in capital costs since it will be much less costly than the MLS system that FAA had been planning to develop. GPS has the further potential to save the airlines and business aviation billions of dollars in operating costs by permitting aircraft to follow the most direct and fuel-efficient routes.
The potential benefit of GPS extend far beyond the aviation industry. GPS will provide substantial benefits to marine and surface transportation and provide valuable information to a variety of other businesses such as farming, gas and oil exploration and surveying. GPS will benefit many recreational activities and GPS is rapidly evolving into a major industry. It has been estimated that worldwide revenues from GPS-related products and services will increase from the current $2 billion a year to $30 billion.
The Aviation Subcommittee last reviewed GPS at hearings in July of 1993. Since that hearing, FAA's program has made substantial progress. In 1993, FAA's first major GPS program, the WAAS, the Wide Area Augmentation System, was still in a conceptual stage with initial implementation planned for the year 2000.
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Initial launch, the permit, GPS, was to be used as a primary means of navigation in end route and terminal airspace. In two years since the last hearing, FAA has advanced the implementation date for initial WAAS from 2,000 to 1997 and has moved through the procurement process almost to the point of awarding a contract.
I understand that this admirable progress was achieved through a series of internal reforms in the internal procurement process and in FAA's procedures for managing large contracts. If FAA can continue to keep the GPS program on track, the program will go from design to implementation in three years, compared to the five or more years which have been required for other large projects.
Now, I cannot resist this opportunity to note that these are the types of reforms that the FAA really needs. The GPS program shows that we do not need to break up the FAA and form a corporation to improve FAA's ability to acquire high-tech equipment for the air traffic control system.
Today's hearing will focus on potential problems which might prevent FAA from meeting its ambitious schedule. Unfortunately, we will have to wait until a later date to get FAA's response to these concerns as the Chairman has indicated. To avoid legal problems in the procurement process, FAA does not want to testify until a later date after the contract has been awarded.
I hope that this hearing format will not give us a distorted picture of the GPS program. It is our responsibility to consider potential problems in the program so that we can assist the FAA in overcoming the problems. But the potential problems should not overshadow the substantial accomplishments of the program to date.
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Mr. Chairman, if I might also, parenthetically, it is my understanding that this will be the last time that Mr. Mead will have the opportunity to testify before us, at least in this present capacity. I just want to thank him for what he has done for this committee in terms of his professionalism and with this new position that he will be assuming, I know we will still see him and we will still hear from him, but I just want to thank—take this moment to thank Mr. Mead and to wish him well in his new position as well. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you, Mr. Mineta, and certainly, I was just asking Mr. Mead how many times he had testified before this committee, and he said somewhere between 60 and 70. And I don't know whether that is the record, but if it is not it certainly must be awfully close. And it is always a privilege to have him with us.
I now would like to recognize a man who has over the years been one of the most active members of this subcommittee and was formerly the Ranking Member of this subcommittee, is now the Chairman of the full Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Mr. Clinger.
Mr. CLINGER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I just want to commend you for holding this hearing to bring us up to date on the status of the GPS system and how the FAA is proceeding to implement that system. As somebody who practically flunked celestial navigation when I was in officer's candidate school in the Navy some years ago, I welcome any new addition to make navigation easier and sort of idiot-proof because I certainly need that sort of thing, but I think the FAA has made great progress in implementing this system.
Page 8 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCObviously, there have been glitches. There have been problems and we are going to address some of those today. I am particularly interested in following up on the comments of Mr. Mineta, and that is how the procurement has been going because I think that has been a major reason given for the sort of radical changes that have been proposed for the FAA, as the need to improve the ability for major acquisitions. And I think that my hope at least is that we have seen evidence that that is not going to be necessary. That, in fact, through some of the efforts that were made last year and hopefully are going to be continued this year in terms of procurement reform.
We will ease that burden and make it possible for us to proceed more rapidly toward achieving the Global Positioning System. So I am very interested, as you indicated, having been the former Ranking Member of this committee, and having been here for the hearing we held two years ago, I am very interested in seeing the progress that has been made and what still needs to be done. And I would join in saluting Ken Mead, who has been such a valuable asset for this committee and for the country over the years on the great contributions he has made and will continue to make. We are delighted to have you here again.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Clinger. We have another outstanding member of the subcommittee, Mr. Zeliff of New Hampshire, and I understand that he is going home this weekend and people are so excited about it that he has got 200 reporters following him home this weekend.
Mr. ZELIFF. Maybe this new system could provide us with a moose sighting. In the interest of time, I congratulate you for addressing this very important issue and look forward to hearing the testimony. So, and I appreciate your wishes of good luck, if that is what I interpret here on both sides, very nonpartisan. It will be an interesting four days.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. LaHood.
Mr. LAHOOD. Mr. Chairman, I would be very brief, only to pick up on the point that the Ranking Member made and that is that I am a little more than astounded when I became a Member of the committee and the subcommittee to learn that the reason that we were going to reinvent government by privatizing or corporatizing or whatever the right word is, FAA, is because the procurement system was faulty. And I have never really been able to figure that out.
If our procurement system is lousy, let's fix that. Why the heck do we have to throw out the whole agency. And I concur with Mr. Mineta wholeheartedly and I have been baffled about this whole idea and I am very interested and I thank you for holding this hearing.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. LaHood. And in a very short time on this subcommittee Mr. LaHood has become a very valuable member and always has some outstanding observations to make. I, first of all, once again, want to welcome all the witnesses here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Costello follows:]
[Insert here.]
Page 10 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCMr. DUNCAN. And we will start the hearing today with the first panel, and the first panel is Mr. Kenneth M. Mead, the Director of the General Accounting Office and he is accompanied by Mr. Robert E. Levin, the Assistant Director and Mr. Juan Tapia, who is the evaluator in charge of the General Accounting Office.
We are also honored to have Mr. Roger Sperry, who is the Director of Management Studies and GPS Coproject Director of the National Academy of Public Administration accompanied by Arnold Donahue, who is the GPS project director from the academy and Dr. Allison Sandlin, who is also the GPS Project Director for the National Research Council.
And we are certainly pleased to have all of you here today, and Mr. Mead, you may begin your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF KENNETH M. MEAD, DIRECTOR, TRANSPORTATION ISSUES, RESOURCES, COMMUNITY, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIVISION, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY ROBERT E. LEVIN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, AND JUAN F. TAPIA, EVALUATOR-IN-CHARGE; ROGER L. SPERRY, DIRECTOR OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY ARNOLD E. DONAHUE, PROJECT DIRECTOR, STUDY ON FUTURE MANAGEMENT AND FUNDING OF GPS, AND DR. ALLISON SANDLIN, GPS PROJECT DIRECTOR, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Mr. MEAD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not expect such kind words. And if I might, without cutting into my five minutes, I tried religiously to keep this within five minutes.
Page 11 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCMr. DUNCAN. We will give you an extra minute or two today.
Mr. MEAD. I deeply appreciate the kind words of the committee and I think that my first passion will always be the transportation area. And I believe we are putting together a good team and, of course, a large part of the team that we have had will remain in place so that we continue to provide top level service. And where I am going, I will make certain that the best interests of this committee are well watched over. But thank you very much.
I would like to introduce my colleagues. Mr. Levin on my left, he leads our work on aviation infrastructure, and Mr. Tapia on my right led our GPS team. Mr. Chairman, in about 10 years of observing FAA, I cannot recall a time when there was so much positive excitement about a technological breakthrough as there is about the use of GPS satellites for navigation.
The current system is, of course, ground-based. And it provides a very safe means for aircraft to go from one airport to another. But because satellite-based navigation will give pilots and controllers more accurate information on the position of aircraft, including over the oceans and on precision approaches to runways, system users are very excited about the prospects of safer and more efficient flights at less cost.
The excitement is shared by those entrusted with watching how tax dollars are spent like ourselves at GAO. The day is coming when the ground-based system will be dismantled giving way to a more efficient satellite system that can be maintained at a lower cost.
As you know, FAA and DOT have the responsibility of making satellite-based civil air navigation a reality. Essentially, two systems are planned. One is called the wide area augmentation system which will augment GPS signals in the airspace around airports and between airports so that aircraft can navigate in air routes and then land on airport runways.
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A second system is called the local area augmentation system. And which will use ground-based equipment to augment the signals in the airspace around airports so that aircraft can land in the worst weather conditions referred to as categories 2 and 3. The need for two systems is based on the fact that GPS in itself does not satisfy aviation requirements for accuracy, system availability, and importantly the capacity to give timely warnings when there is a system malfunction.
Our testimony will summarize the findings of our recent report. I think we gave it to the committee on May 10th. We have three basic findings. First, we are concerned that FAA will not meet its published schedule for completing the enhancements to GPS or the so-called augmentations that will be needed to make satellites a primary means of navigation.
FAA plans to develop and implement the wide area system by 1997, so aircraft can begin using GPS without relying on other navigation aids for backup or even having such backup equipment on board the aircraft. We are focusing on the 1997 date initially. We think the schedule is highly ambitious. It basically gives FAA 27 months to commission the wide area system.
What do they have to do in that time? Well, in that time the agency must sign the contract with private companies to develop and implement the hardware and software. The companies must successfully, of course, build it, test it and install it and then FAA must certify and commission it, but FAA officials are telling us that software development alone may take that long or longer to complete.
Page 13 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCFurthermore, completion of the wide area system could be slowed by potential problems in developing software or the launching of communications satellites needed to make the system function properly. The launch of the first of those satellites has already been delayed from late 1995 to early 1996. FAA attaches a likelihood of roughly 60 percent that the software schedule will be adhered to. And since the agency does have a history of problems, one might say, in the software area, we don't have a high level of confidence in that 1997 date.
Our second finding relates to FAA's management initiatives for bringing GPS navigation on line. We are very encouraged by FAA's actions to integrate GPS activities within the agency. Also, to secure funding, about $100 million, for development of the wide area system and also to come up with plans for implementing satellite-based navigation.
Our concern centers around the plans. They currently lack critical information such as a timetable for implementation of the local area system and funding needs for both the wide area system and the local area system.
FAA told us that they would address those omissions when they revise its plans in the future.
Our third and final point is that any significant delays implementing satellite-based navigation is going to have consequences for FAA's funding needs and they are important consequences. The trust fund will be paying for a time for basically dual navigation systems. One will be ground-based and one will be satellite-based. FAA foresees that after a transition period they will be able to start decommissioning the existing ground-based network.
Page 14 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCThat process they estimate will last about 10 years. If the schedule for implementing the satellite-based navigation is delayed, FAA may defer significant cost savings associated with the phaseout. The delays could limit the agency's ability to reduce the spending for the ground-based systems which I would peg at $200 million per year. That would include the operations and maintenance costs plus any new acquisitions for ILS and other existing ground-based navigation equipment.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes our statement.
Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Thank you very much. And at this time we will call on Mr. Sperry.
Mr. SPERRY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Our statement this morning is really a joint statement of Arnold Donahue and me. We have agreed to a division of responsibilities in which I will read the statement and he will answer all the hard questions.
We also have Dr. Allison Sandlin with us who is the Project Director for the NRC part of this joint study. She has filed a separate written statement for the committee's consideration and will be able to answer any technical questions on our joint report.
We do appreciate the invitation to discuss the recently completed study, ''the Global Positioning System, Charting the Future,'' which was done jointly with the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Public Administration.
The NAPA panel was chaired by Dr. James R. Schlesinger. The NAPA panel assigned the highest priority to maintaining the military advantages associated with GPS. The panel concluded that the national security should be addressed simultaneously, however, with commercial and international aspects of GPS.
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Our panel found that the best approach for preserving national security is one that adapted to the rapidly evolving commercial and international dimensions shaping the future of GPS.
Powerful forces are shaping the future of GPS. Such force will affect the ways the United States maintains the military advantage inherent in GPS, which the NAPA panel believes is paramount, as I said. These forces include GPS as a potential weapon of war and terrorism a very important consideration.
Second, rapidly growing commercial markets are expected to be in excess of $30 billion worldwide by 2005. Third, use by much larger segments of the general public, perhaps a half million now, growing 10 to 20 million in 10 years. And fourth, the further potential of technological improvements, which can and are being made to the basic satellite system. And finally, international markets and influences. Rapid expansion is occurring in international markets as well.
Because these forces operate in concert, not independently, policymakers do not enjoy the luxury of developing categorical responses. Comprehensive policies to address interrelated challenges are necessary. Mr. Chairman, what we are saying here applies not only to the basic system, but to major augmentations as well.
The United States must not only stay at the leading edge of technological development, but also must establish a governance and management framework capable of balancing the various national goals set by GPS. The key, our panel said, was to design a flexible framework for reconciling the competing demands on the system in ways that respond to the national interest.
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The NAPA panel concluded that GPS is an invaluable asset that is rapidly becoming a de facto global utility. To maintain U.S. leadership in satellite navigation the NAPA panel recommends that, first, the President adopt a broad national strategy based on explicit national goals to guide GPS policy-making and implementation.
A short way of looking at this is to think of GPS as, yes, a military-developed system, but also a national asset and a global utility. All dimensions must be considered. The panel recommended an explicit set of goals aimed at protecting the national security, encouraging commercial growth and fostering international acceptance and continued U.S. leadership in this field.
Second, the United States should underscore its commitment to make GPS available free of direct charges to all users, a commitment going back to 1983. To sustain its military advantage, the DOD should develop the capability to counter adverse use of GPS and other radionavigation signals. Selective availability which degrades the signal is not fulfilling the purpose for which it was created and it should be turned to zero now and deactivated after three years.
Fourth, the United States should develop a more effective mechanism of governance in the form of a GPS executive board with broadened civil agency participation in U.S. policymaking and means for providing a greater voice for civilian, commercial and international interests in the future evolution of GPS.
And fifth, provision of stable funding for national security and public safety should be continued while pursuing contributions from other nations as international participation grows.
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Two fundamental questions now confront U.S. policymakers responsible for GPS. Who governs and manages it and who pays for it? The DOD has successfully developed and fielded this highly useful satellite-based system. Our panel believes that DOD deserves both public gratitude and congratulations for this impressive technological achievement. The DOD governance and management structure has worked well during the two decades of development, but demands on the system are widening and becoming far more complex than before and rival systems may emerge.
The Department of Transportation has been given a stronger role as representative of civil interests, but is still a relatively weak partner to DOD. The report suggests steps DOT can take to strengthen its role and participation. Governance and management will need to evolve further to meet effectively the challenges of the future.
Proliferating civilian users, domestic and foreign, will need to be better represented in Federal policy-making on GPS. As to funding, the NAPA panel concluded that GPS has extraordinary value both as a vital and proven military system and as a stimulus to the national and international economies.
GPS constitutes a national asset that the Nation should continue to own, support financially, and offer as a global utility. The panel said Congress and the administration should treat GPS as a public good and continue to fund it through general revenues, thus assuring the system a solid and reliable funding base. That, by the way, does apply primarily to the basic system, which was what we concentrated on.
Page 18 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCGPS has the potential to generate significant revenues under existing tax structures just through the corporate tax that is being paid on the additional economic activity generated by GPS. To date, DOD has borne the cost of providing a national program benefitting the entire world.
In the future, where possible, those who benefit from availability of the GPS signal should contribute toward the cost of providing them. In the panel's view, system enhancements and augmentations that benefit national security or public safety should receive Federal support and that includes the WAAS. Augmentations that benefit primarily the private sector should be paid for insofar as possible by the beneficiaries. If other nations agree to contribute, the DOD financial contribution should be reduced.
This completes our statement and we would be pleased to answer any questions.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Sperry.
Let me begin the questioning by asking you about this Wall Street Journal article that I made reference to earlier, and you have mentioned several times the Department of Defense and national security questions and so forth.
In the Wall Street Journal headline it said, ''Airliners can exploit the U.S. guidance system, but so can enemies.'' Global Positioning Systems could be used to direct cheap, accurate missiles. A defense aide was quoted as saying, ''It is a quandary.''
Page 19 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCDo you have any security concerns? Do you believe that these systems which make—which will make the GPS more accurate, do you think they make the U.S. more vulnerable in some way or do you think there is a security risk there?
Mr. SPERRY. I am going to ask Mr. Donahue to answer that since he did work on the national security part of this.
Mr. DONAHUE. Mr. Chairman, Arnold Donahue. I think the conclusion of the panel was that, yes, indeed there was a threat from GPS. It is a threat that exists today with selective availability because that system provides an accuracy of 100 meters. One hundred meters is very good accuracy in a lot of situations for a lot of weapons systems. So there is a threat from the availability of a good guidance system that is widely available.
I think the panel also concluded, however, that it is probably impossible to deny that capability to many people. And, with the proliferation of differential systems, that even greater accuracy, down to 5 meters, was going to be readily available or was already readily available in many parts of the world. Therefore, the panel, looking at a broader aspect of national security policy, suggested that the Department of Defense focus on alternative means rather than selective availability of dealing with the problem.
Mr. DUNCAN. Let me ask you this also, and it is somewhat related. An article in air transport world not long ago, it says this: On one side are airlines and aircraft manufacturers who say GPS could revolutionize ATC, air traffic control, quickly with the potential to save airlines around $5 billion annually in fuel and other costs. GPS also is a potentially lucrative industry. So manufacturers and many airlines want its implementation to begin immediately. The other side is the system's owner and operator, the U.S. Department of Defense, which does not want civilians to lose sight of who controls GPS.
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Is there a conflict there? And how do we resolve those differences? And who really, in your opinion, should control GPS?
Mr. SPERRY. I think that we have seen one potential conflict successfully worked out with regard to the accuracy issue on the WAAS, which we think is basically encouraging and it shows that the two departments with some difficulty can work together.
However, we are recommending that DOT take a stronger role and become a full partner, if you will, with DOD in the management of the system. A governing board should be put in place that will include additional governmental organizations, specifically the Departments of State, Interior and Commerce, all of whom have direct interest in at least the civilian side of this system.
And we think through this kind of an approach that we will see all perspectives brought to bear here. Our panel also thinks this idea of a national strategy, and national goals is very important. We are pleased that there is a policy review now underway in the White House, which is expected to take about six months and we hope that that will bring this kind of national perspective to this very important satellite navigation system.
There are also worldwide issues here that go beyond the United States and have to be taken into consideration if satellite navigation is to become the wave of the future throughout the world, and we really hope it does. So we hope particularly that the recommendations we have made on this executive board and the national goals will be taken seriously.
Page 21 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCMr. DUNCAN. Yes Mr. Mead?
Mr. MEAD. One additional perspective on that, and it is good to see Mr. Clinger here, because there are some issues involved here that transcend the different congressional committees.
Mr. DUNCAN. Right.
Mr. MEAD. We issued a report last year that found that about 11 agencies involved in GPS in one way or another. FAA certainly is a big one. The Coast Guard is another. And not only do we have an issue here of governance of GPS with DOD and DOT, with DOT being something of a weak sister, but we have other agencies that DOT will have to represent in that governance.
Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Mead, let me ask you this. I believe I understood you correctly to say that the FAA has told you that they feel there is only a 60 percent likelihood that they can meet their schedules on this. Is that what you said?
Mr. MEAD. On the software schedule, yes, sir.
Mr. DUNCAN. And you have participated, I have participated with you, on two or three hearings over the years on the Advanced Automation System, the AAS, and you heard me mention that in my opening statement that there have been billions in cost overruns and delays of several years. Do you think—do you foresee a repeat of some of those same problems in regard to GPS?
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Mr. MEAD. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Mineta mentioned in his opening remarks by reference that FAA may have learned some hard lessons and made some internal reforms. It would be very fortunate for FAA to have in place the oversight mechanisms especially on software development that they did not have in place on AAS. And I think we are very encouraged by what we see. And I will give you a perspective, some numbers here.
The ISSS was what we were really focusing on. At one point it had 1.6 million lines of code. In GPS we are probably talking around 200,000 lines of code in terms of what FAA has to do.
Software volatility, that is the number of times you have to rewrite lines of code, on ISSS was approaching 100 percent before FAA said we have got real problems here. So if FAA is finding that they have got software volatility as they develop the software to any substantial degree, I think it is very important that corrective action be taken then rather than waiting a couple of years.
Mr. DUNCAN. I have got some additional questions, but my time is up and so I am going to go now to Mr. Mineta.
Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me ask Mr. Mead about the software. Do you think the FAA has been helpful in terms of trying to help on this fact—trying to meet this 27-month schedule? Is there anything further that the FAA could be doing to try to help on that software situation?
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Mr. MEAD. Yes, there is.
Mr. MINETA. Do you know whether or not they are taking those steps to try and facilitate the software development?
Mr. LEVIN. Okay. I wish I could answer a flat, yes or no, or be very certain about it. Clearly, things are in the early stage. The contract hasn't even been signed yet. We have not gone in and taken an in-depth look at their software development processes to see if there are some of the same kind of problems today as there were when FAA was developing the ISSS. It may be something that several months down the road we might want to go look at. But at this point in time it is hard for us to really know how good those processes are.
Mr. MEAD. I can be candid on one point. I am hoping, Mr. Mineta, that the contract that FAA enters into has the proper incentives for the contractor to move along on what you might say is a better risk allocation between DOT and the contractor.
There was not that risk allocation in the former AAS. The government was paying out a great deal of money and things just went on.
Mr. MINETA. Well, are you having problems with trying to resolve this whole idea that the comprehensive schedule and plan that you would like to see in place is not going to be made public until after the contract is signed? Do you feel that that is not the right approach and it ought to be something in place before we even get to that point?
Page 24 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCMr. MEAD. No, sir, I think they should go forward.
Mr. MINETA. Of course, the FAA, as I understand it, says, well, we already have these comprehensive plans and schedules, but we are not going to make it public until after the contract is awarded as it relates to the WAAS.
Mr. MEAD. Well, they are going through a contract negotiation at the present time so it would be difficult for them to announce now what the price was. For the LAAS, the local area systems, they do not have approved plans for its schedule and we do not have macro ball park numbers for what the wide area system or the local area system will cost.
Mr. MINETA. Is there a question as to whether or not there is a comprehensive plan and schedule and you folks don't agree with it as it relates to WAAS. Or again, I am sorry, is it a question of, no, I don't think it exists?
Mr. LEVIN. Well, the WAAS system schedule is clear.
Mr. MINETA. It is clear?
Mr. LEVIN. There are numbers in FAA on the cost of the WAAS. They have not lined up with the schedule yet in any formal way. But we are confident that they could do that.
They need to come forward, however, on the local area system for both cost and schedule. That has not been made public.
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Mr. MINETA. Let me ask about the local area augmentation system. Should they go ahead and prepare cost and schedule plans on that one? They are saying that until they have completed their feasibility tests of the project, they don't feel that they should go forward with that portion of the local system.
Mr. MEAD. I think when they complete their feasibility study, which is imminent, yes, they should. For the AAS, they were telling you what that was going to cost in 1983. They didn't let the contract for six more years.
Mr. MINETA. And where are they in terms of that prediction?
Mr. MEAD. They were off by a few billion.
Mr. MINETA. Let me ask about a statement that we are going to hear later on. A subsequent witness will be recommending that the WAAS signal be made available for free only to aviation users and that other users be required to pay a charge and purchase an encrypting or decrypting device to use the system and one of the arguments for this proposal is that companies such as Mr. Knoll's are now operating systems which improve the GPS signal for nonaviation users, and if the government offered augmentation services for free, then firms like DCI would be driven out of business.
I have two questions on this proposal. First of all, what effect would it have on the FAA's WAAS program to add a requirement that the signal be encrypted and would this require major change to cause substantial delays in the program?
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And secondly, what are your views on the fairness of the government offering for free a GPS augmentation service now being provided by the private sector and do you see any overriding policy benefits which outweigh the unfairness to the private companies?
Mr. MEAD. I will pass. After making a couple of comments, I am sure NAPA has some words on this, too.
First of all, encryption is going to increase the cost of receivers. That is a trade-off. I do not know exactly how much, but encryption will increase the cost.
Mr. MINETA. Will that create any kind of delay in terms of because of the changes in specifications.
Mr. MEAD. Yes, it will. It would almost certainly do that because present plans do not call for that. And it seems to me that one imperative that we need to consider is moving forward with the transition to GPS. It has been a long time coming as it is.
The second point I would like to make, in the NAPA study, they point out that currently the business for GPS is on the order of $2 billion a year and they are projecting it is going to go to $30 billion. So there are substantial public benefits involved here in what could arguably be said the delivery of a public good.
Mr. DONAHUE. Mr. Mineta, Arnold Donahue again.
Page 27 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCMr. MINETA. Could I ask you to pull the mike up a little closer, please. Thank you, sir.
Mr. DONAHUE. The NAPA panel did look and consider and, in fact, rejected the idea of having an encrypted either basic GPS or WAAS approach. We did that for a number of reasons, but we found it extremely difficult to provide a free basic GPS service, having the basic signal out there as a free good, to then charge for a secondary signal.
We rejected that approach because of a number of circumstances. One, we had testimony that there was concern about public safety and the dangers of having an extremely complicated system to aircraft, boats and other transportation vehicles in that mode.
Second, we found that if you started employing encryption, you were walking down the road to an extremely complicated and complex system. It was described for us in one report as requiring an embedded module within a receiver requiring a magnetic card and requiring somebody to have a PIN number to make the system work. This was extremely complicated when you think of potentially millions of users in the private sector, including aircraft.
It should be noted that even the U.S. military would not require their pilots to have available a special module with a special magnetic card and a PIN number to make this system work.
For those reasons, the NAPA panel felt that encryption as an approach to the system, either as the basic system or for the WAAS, was extremely difficult and complicated to have. As an alternative, they looked on rather the system as a public good. And the same point that Mr. Mead just made, that here was an opportunity to provide a wide service with a wide range of benefits to a lot of people that would not require the cost and complexity of an encryption system. So that approach was basically rejected by the panel at that time.
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Dr. SANDLIN. Mr. Mineta, the NRC committee also examined encryption from a technical standpoint and they also determined that while it was technically feasible that it was very difficult from a logistical standpoint in terms of key management and international acceptance and fee collection.
One thing to point out also is that my understanding is the WAAS provides an accuracy that is less than some of the current differential systems and based on some of the market surveys, there is still a demand for differential corrections that can still be provided by private differential service providers that the WAAS will not meet in terms of accuracy.
Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to comment that, you know, yesterday's exciting rescue of the pilot is a combination of the pilot and GPS and ELT. So the need and the kind of potential there is just really exciting and yet at the same time, if there is a possibility that terrorists could spoof the system, then it seems to me we have got to be wary of that.
Encryption is a possibility in terms of helping on that score. And it also helps in terms of the private sector in terms of where they are coming into this picture. But, again, as you say, the delay, all the other complications that come into it, create other problems as well. But we will, I know, get into that matter deeper in a more extensive way. Again, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Mineta.
Page 29 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCMr. Clinger.
Mr. CLINGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank the panel for their testimony. I think we have all been frustrated over the years with the sort of poor track record with regards to the FAA's ability to predict when they can get things accomplished. I mean, this is not unique. It has been almost epidemic that they have failed to make dates that they have projected and they failed, you know, to properly estimate the cost of what they were doing.
And I am just wondering in this instance, again, Mr. Mead, you have indicated that they are probably going to miss the predicted—some of the predicted dates that they have for implementing the WAAS. Is there—to what do you attribute their pretty lousy track record in making these predictions? Why are they not able to do a better job at telling us how long it is going to take them to do certain things?
Let me refine that a little bit and say, I am particularly interested in the impediments that the procurement system may have imposed upon them that made it difficult for them to do these things. If that is a part of the equation, there are things we need to do to straighten that out?
Mr. MEAD. I believe you have a different set of issues on the timing with GPS than you did with AAS, at least as we see things right now. The schedules that FAA had initially set for WAAS, that was the wide area system, was 2000 or 2001. Because of industry pressures in the National Performance Review, there was pressure applied to accelerate those schedules so FAA moved that schedule to 1997.
Page 30 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCAnd our work is suggesting that it is probably too ambitious, that they in all likelihood are going to need a little extra time on that. But that is what is happening here. I do not see the procurement process in any way throwing out an obstacle.
Of course, if we were to encrypt the signal, that would cause a delay because they would presumably have to repeat the bidding. But so far what we see are good efforts. I think FAA has learned some hard lessons, Mr. Clinger.
Mr. CLINGER. On the question of—you raised the issue of governance and I think that is a very real issue here, because there are a number of entities that have a piece of the action, if you will, that are involved in decisions as to the implementation and how GPS is going to be managed.
The NAPA NRC study suggests that DOD would control the operation and maintenance of GPS, but a high level board composed of DOD, DOT, and the Departments of State, Commerce, and Interior would basically shape policy.
Do you think that will work? I mean, is that going to be an effective way to ensure that we don't have sort of interagency gridlock with regard to shaping policy? In other words, I guess do you accept NAPA's recommendation in this regard?
Mr. MEAD. Yes, I don't want to understate the problematics involved in governance of that type. This will be tough. But I don't see as though we have any alternative. Perhaps the White House could bring some leadership to bear on this in setting up the stature of this governing board and laying out the marching orders in such a manner that there is not a bunch of bureaucratic squabbling and that it is truly issue resolution, such as the signal availability/degradation issue. That is an issue that needs to be resolved. It has gone on for some time now and this is one forum for resolving it.
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Mr. CLINGER. So what we really need is some sort of action-forcing mechanism that says, okay, the decision will be made at some point by some entity and it will be final and not subject to argument.
Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPERRY. On these kinds of issues, there really is no ideal conclusion, Mr. Clinger. As you know, we looked at a variety of options, including a possible White House working group to oversee it rather than a multiagency board. And our panel simply concluded that for this to have a continuing oversight, it would be needed to be composed of agency representatives perhaps with a final appeal to the White House.
The other thing is we are calling for an Executive Order here or perhaps a Presidential decision directive that would set broad policy and hopefully the goals that our panel recommended. The decisions and policy-making by this executive board would be in that context.
And to the extent that the board wants to be able to resolve issues, then obviously they can be appealed to the White House. But there are no perfect solutions here. This one seemed to be the best one that is available with government continuing to operate the basic system and the need for coordination of augmentations of GPS as well.
Mr. CLINGER. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Clinger.
Mrs. Kelly?
All right, gentlemen, I have a couple more questions. I would like to ask first, Mr. Mineta got a little bit into this and the next panel, I believe, will testify that the FAA supplemental systems will put them out of business. And we have gotten into the possibility of encryption a little bit to protect these businesses in some way.
Is there something else that can be done that might help these businesses that we are going to hear from next? Or make sure that they stay in business? Is there, for instance, a possibility of encryption of the LAAS system rather than WAAS or something else that we have not discussed yet?
Mr. Donahue?
Mr. DONAHUE. Well, we looked at this to some extent within the report. First of all, we did an analysis by talking to the major differential service providers ourselves, including some of those that you will hear testimony on later on and talked to them about the nature of the problem.
The panel ended up with a recommendation that said for the government to provide services beyond those for national security and public safety—and that is where we sort of drew the line—it was probably going to be a mistake. That it should reach out to the private sector to be the primary provider of those services.
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With respect to the economics of it, we found that even in our survey of the differential service providers, that some of them felt, indeed, that they could have a business increase with, for example, selective availability turned off which provides service in a rough sense comparable to that that will be provided free, for example on an unencrypted WAAS. So some of them were predicting increased business.
Third, we had a market analysis done by the National Research Council, had a market analysis done which indicated differential service providers would, in fact, continue to grow because the higher accuracy demands would continue to require differential service providers.
Nonetheless, there is an area here that at some point one has to begin to say, is the government going to provide service down to extreme accuracy levels as a public safety, public good and where do we draw that line?
It was difficult for us to come up with a definitive line on that. We felt clearly that for the purposes of public safety that the need for a free signal sort of overwhelmed the requirement to protect those specific companies.
In addition, our analysis showed that those companies would do extremely well even with that free signal down to that level.
Mr. SPERRY. Even in the use of local area systems, you still run into the problem of the airliners themselves having to deal with an encrypted or coded signal and the question is do you want to introduce that level of complexity? We were told that that is a problem just as much in the local area as it is in the wide area. So I want to be sure that that will make that much of a difference.
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Mr. MEAD. A basic problem on encryption on local area is that if you do it in the local area, you might as well do it in the wide area, too, because it is going to be the same receiver. And if you are talking about exponential costs, the receiver's cost will go up whether it is LAAS or WAAS or whatever.
Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Mead, let me ask you if you know this. There was an article in Business Week about this in 1992, and it has got the interesting title of, ''Who Knows Where You Are? The Satellite Knows.'' But anyway, what I really want to ask about, it says in this article, that the government, the Federal Government primarily the Defense Department, has spent a little over $3 billion over the past 15 years developing this system. And that was written in February 1992. Do you know roughly how much the Federal Government has spent developing this since that time?
Mr. MEAD. The exact figures may be classified. I would—
Mr. DUNCAN. It is classified, but it is in Business Week Magazine.
Mr. MEAD. In the neighborhood of $6 billion, $5 or $6 billion for the GPS. There is probably another 4 billion in there that has strictly other things that they need to do to equip the military, but basically $6 billion. And so far Congress has given about $100 million to FAA. Coast Guard, maybe 10 million bucks.
Mr. DONAHUE. Mr. Chairman, we have rather complete figures in our report. I think we calculated a little over 5 billion for the satellite system itself, the ground control and associated operation of the satellites. In addition, there has been spending of about 3 to 4 billion on user equipment by the military services. So the Federal Government total investment has been on the order of 9 to $10 billion.
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Mr. DUNCAN. You heard me refer earlier to an Air Transport World article in which they said that the airlines and aircraft manufacturers say that the GPS could potentially save them as much as $5 billion each year. Have any of you looked at that figure?
Do you think that that is realistic? Or is that just some sort of exaggeration to get us to go further—a lot further into this? Is that an accurate figure? Does anybody know? Is that just some wild guesstimate?
Mr. MEAD. I would not characterize it as wild. Perhaps a bit soft. But I have seen some analysis on the savings over the Atlantic Ocean, over the Pacific Ocean for 747 aircraft operating under GPS and with the GPS receiver equipage. And per aircraft it is over half a million dollars a year. That is a substantial amount of money.
Mr. DUNCAN. Yes, it sure is.
Mr. DONAHUE. Can I just expand on that one minute.
Mr. DUNCAN. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. DONAHUE. I think there are some cost-benefit analyses that have been done by FAA. Some of them leave something to be desired. For example, calculating the worth of waiting time for a passenger because he cannot take off because of weather problems. And those are very difficult calculations.
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Nonetheless, when one looks at the broader economics sphere, the economics of GPS look tremendously favorable and that is sort of where our panel ended up in the conclusion. The economics of applying this in many areas, not just aviation, but particularly aviation, were very, very strong, not only as a substitute for microwave landing systems, but for savings in the operation of aircraft. And this we found to be true not only in the United States; one UK airline cited flying to Beijing on a GPS route would save $40,000 per flight just in fuel. Those are the kind of savings that over a year's worth of aviation or multiyears of aviation just amount to a tremendous amount of savings.
Mr. MEAD. Here is another figure that you will find of interest, I think. To buy, install, and commission an instrument landing system for the category one would be about $1.5.
For a satellite-based in a local area system, it will be about $250,000–$300,000 per unit. So we will be able to enormously expand the number of airports that are capable of receiving precision landings.
Mr. DUNCAN. Let me ask one last thing, I guess just more out of interest or curiosity. But this—the Air Transport World article to which I have referred, it is entitled, ''Delaying the GPS Promise,'' and it says it has been called the navigation tool for the future. But turf battles, competing technologies, and politics may put off implementation.
Do you all see that happening, turf battles and competing technologies and politics putting off implementation?
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And second, the curiosity part, or sort of just interesting to me, I suppose, the people who know about GPS seem to be really excited about it. And I mentioned in my opening statement, I used the word revolutionary, and yet—and I notice—I read in the NAPA report that the market for GPS goods and services is $2 billion now and you predict that it is going to go to 31 billion in 10 years' time and you describe that growth as phenomenal and it really is, and yet I have the feeling that if I went out here and stopped a thousand people on the street and asked them what GPS stood for, I don't know if I could find five that could tell me.
And why is that? I mean, is this really the revolutionary, exciting development that we seem to think it is? And are more people going to hear about this in the future or is this something that has been exaggerated and, as this article says, the navigation tool of the future, but turf battles and competing technologies and politics are all going to put it off and delay it so that we really do not get the promise fulfilled? Do you all have any comments about that?
Mr. MEAD. I truly think there is a revolution occurring here. I think it is inevitable, certainly at FAA. You ask about turf battles and things, certainly maybe GAO doesn't want to go on record and say that there are turf battles over at FAA, certainly, but I would go so far as to say that FAA's persistence on the microwave landing system got in the way of progress in moving to GPS.
It took years, it seemed to get off the track on microwave landing systems. So maybe we would be a little further ahead than we are now. Also, the whole GPS program, before we went in, was fragmented. Different places in FAA would run it. Now, it has been brought together, it is integrated under one management, which I think is an important internal reform. And Mr. Sperry might wish to add.
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Mr. SPERRY. Arnie Donahue had some responsibility for this when he was with OMB before he retired. I come to this quite new in this particular study, and I can assure you it has been a very exciting experience to see what the possibilities are.
Our report has one page in it that we were provided by DOT that lists all the applications, at least all the ones that they could think of at that time and it is in very fine print. It is a remarkable list. And the ingenuity that we have seen applied by users and manufacturers is close to astounding. So it is a very exciting development.
As to the issue of turf battles I don't know that that is so much a problem as it is the practical problems of administering a dual use system. The National Research Council has recommended several technical improvements to this system that are going to cost a modest amount of money to put in place, but they could benefit quite a number of people and continue to make the GPS the best system in the world for navigation and for positioning and for timing services.
But there are some practical problems in finding the mechanism through the DOD to fund these matters. And I think that this particular committee has to take a greater interest in assuring that the civil side of GPS—both enhancements to the basic system and augmentations are given proper due in the course of the management of this, both by the DOD and DOT.
Mr. DUNCAN. Is there any other country in the world that is spending a large amount of money doing research and development of GPS?
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Mr. SPERRY. Well, there are two key places that we know of right now, one is the Russian GLONASS system, which is a constellation of 19 satellites scheduled to go to 24. It has perhaps more, short-lived satellites and uncertain future, but is already up there and they pledge to keep it going.
The other organization that has a strong interest and the wherewithal to do something about it is Inmarsat. They have a plan that would eventually provide for about 15 satellites with navigation packages on them and an intermediate orbit that could provide a service comparable to what is now provided by GPS.
So there are potential competitors out there. The European Community is looking at the possibility of putting up its own system if they are not satisfied with what the U.S. is providing. So these factors have to be taken into account.
Mr. MEAD. It is worth noting on this, Mr. Chairman, that the Russian system will be free, unencrypted and I believe the signal will be undegraded.
Mr. SPERRY. That is correct.
Mr. DUNCAN. I have gone far too long. Let me turn to Mr. Mineta.
Mr. MINETA. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your indulgence. One of the things that we have had in the past as a problem in trying to convince the Europeans to join us on the GPS has been the fact that they are afraid that being a DOD system, that in case of a national emergency that all of a sudden the civil users would not have access to the GPS.
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It is my understanding that DOD will say with a 27 full system and with a two-theater operation they can still have civil use of the GPS.
Let me just turn this slightly from that. I hadn't realized you had retired, Arnie, but in any event, because of your expertise on this, let me just clarify in my own mind.
Could you go through the whole issue of say spoofing, encryption, SA to zero and the benefits that would come given some of the civil concerns about where we are in terms of where we are going right now. I am wondering—I guess I need some clarification of the encryption versus what is the relationship to selective availability. Is there a relationship of any kind?
Mr. DONAHUE. Not—not directly. The military signal that is provided on the satellite currently is encrypted. The civilian signal is not encrypted. However, the civilian signal has the selective availability feature by which the technical parameters, the timing and the location of the satellite that is giving the signal, can be changed by the Department of Defense, which results in a degradation of the accuracy from approximately 30 meters to 100 meters.
The NAPA panel recommended that selective availability be turned off. Be turned to zero. With the option of reinstituting it if national security—
Mr. MINETA. Let me ask, does that impact on spoofing? Does it impact on its being invaded by nonlegitimate users to the system?
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Mr. DONAHUE. That would be true whether selective availability was on or off. It is neutral in that. But Allison has looked much more closely at the spoofing aspect and maybe you could address that.
Dr. SANDLIN. Spoofing is essentially providing false signals to a user.
Mr. MINETA. And so the only way to protect on that is encryption.
Dr. SANDLIN. Encryption helps.
Mr. MINETA. Is there a way to protect yourself—
Mr. DONAHUE. There are a lot of built-in advantages in the Global Positioning System to eliminate spoofing by itself. It has to correlate between a set of satellites. It can toss out a signal that looks bad because of its location. It knows the location of the satellites and, if suddenly somebody comes with a false signal, it can be tossed out.
If it is coming from the wrong direction, it can sometimes toss it out. You can build certain other features into the system like special antennas that diminish the problem of spoofing. Clearly, if you put an antenna on the top of an aircraft where most of them would be because you are looking for a satellite system, the really only way to spoof is to have something coming down from another satellite. You are eliminating the ground sort of interference approach that could spoof the signal. So there are approaches other than encryption to the spoofing problem.
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Nonetheless, there are elements of interference and it gets worse when you get to some of the local area systems because they are ground-based. For the wide area system, for the WAAS and for the GPS itself, it can be difficult to spoof it.
Dr. SANDLIN. One point is that the user is receiving signals from various satellites so in order to spoof a user, you would need to spoof all of the satellite signals in order to deter a user so you would need more than one spoofer and for an application which involves motion, it would be very difficult, I think, to spoof or to take a user away from the satellite signals and to spoof him, to deter him and provide false signals.
Mr. MINETA. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much to the panel.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Mineta.
Mrs. Kelly, do you have any questions at this time?
Mr. Clinger, do you have any other questions?
Well, let me thank all of the witnesses. I will say that I have another article here in which Charles Tremble of Tremble Navigation predicts that roughly 25 million consumer devices having GPS inside will be sold by the year 2000. And as someone born in 1947, the year 2000 has always sounded far off, but now it is right here on us. And so, I think we are going to be hearing a lot more about GPS in the very near future. And I thank you very much.
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Did you want to say something?
Mr. TAPIA. Mr. Chairman, in terms of exposing the American public to GPS, I went to buy a 1996 car and they were trying very hard to sell me a GPS receiver in the car. They are coming. And the Japanese are very aggressive in the market with their cars. So—
Mr. DUNCAN. Our staff director, Dave Shaffer, told me yesterday that he thought that they would start out selling it as a very expensive extra and in a few year's time it would become a very low-cost standard item. And so we will see.
Mr. MEAD. There is a graph in the NAPA study that I think is interesting. Especially for the implications for the full committee. It shows users of GPS ranked. And aviation by 2005 has got, has 14 percent of the total use. You go to land, surface transportation and it goes to 40 percent. I guess there is going to be a lot of interrogate vehicles on the roads.
Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I tell you it is a fascinating thing to look into, and I think it is something that we need to pay quite a bit more attention to from this committee's standpoint in the years ahead. But thank you very much for coming here and testifying and being with us today. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. All right. I would like to welcome the next panel, panel 2, and on panel 2 we have Bruce Noel, who is Vice President of Differential Corrections, Incorporated, accompanied by Andy Bogle, who is the Marketing Manager for John Chance and Associates and Gordon Kaiser, who is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ACCQPOINT and we also have Professor Dorothy Denning, who is from the Department of computer science at Georgetown University.
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And so, I would like to welcome the four gentlemen who are here with us, and Dr. Denning and certainly it is a privilege and honor for us to have you with us. And I believe that, gentlemen, we will go ahead and start first with Dr. Denning and let her testify since she is seated there in what we generally consider the first seat. And are you ready to proceed, Dr. Denning? You may begin your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. DOROTHY E. DENNING, COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY; BRUCE A. NOEL, VICE PRESIDENT, DIFFERENTIAL CORRECTIONS INCORPORATED, ACCOMPANIED BY ANDY BOGLE, MARKETING MANAGER, JOHN E. CHANCE & ASSOCIATES, INC., GORDON E. KAISER, CHAIRMAN, AND CEO, ACCQPOINT, AND RONALD HALEY, PRESIDENT ANT CEO, DIFFERENTIAL CORRECTIONS, INC
Dr. DENNING. You surprised me. I thought I was going to be last. Just to start out, I am a relative newcomer to this and really didn't know very much about GPS prior to being asked to testify before this subcommittee. I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this opportunity to look at the encryption issue.
I was asked to consider the question of whether the FAA's planned differential GPS corrections signals could be encrypted with a commercial algorithm that would be essentially unbreakable. Currently, there are no plans to use any type of encryption in either the Wide Area Augmentation System, WAAS, or the Local Area Augmentation System. However, the private sector differential GPS providers encrypt their signal with proprietary algorithms in order to protect their commercial interests.
Page 45 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCI found no technical obstacles to encrypting the differential corrections with a strong algorithm, although this application might not require such a strong algorithm. However, I did find considerable controversy over the question of whether encryption should be included at all. I will focus my testimony on the arguments for and against encryption.
There are four arguments in favor of encryption. First, encryption would provide a method of denying access to adversaries. Although jamming also can be used for this purpose, it might not be suitable in some situations.
Second, encryption would enhance safety by providing a method of detecting spoofed signals transmitted by an adversary for the purpose of causing a crash. Third, encryption would provide a mechanism for recovering costs since access to the signals could be conditioned on paying a fee.
Costs could be recovered through other means such as the airline ticket tax, but using encryption for this purpose leads to the fourth argument for encryption: It would protect the commercial interests of private sector differential GPS providers since the FAA signals would not be available for free.
Although the private sector providers could continue to find a strong and growing market by providing greater precision or other niche services, encryption would resolve any market overlap.
There are also four arguments opposed to encryption. First, encryption would require a major redesign and development effort that would take several years. This could potentially delay operation of WAAS while adding significant development and implementation costs probably in the tens of millions of dollars if not more.
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In addition to direct costs, delayed operation of the proposed augmentation system could delay projected cost savings to the FAA, which are estimated to reach several billions of dollars.
Second, encryption introduces potential safety problems. If the encryption or key management system fails in any way or if an adversary interferes with the signals, the signals would not be available possibly in an emergency situation. Third, putting encryption into WAAS might undermine U.S. leadership in GPS and harm U.S. industry. Encryption might not be accepted internationally.
If WAAS is significantly delayed or if international acceptance is not achieved, a non-U.S. GPS augmentation system without encryption could be adopted internationally. This might reduce the potential market for U.S.-made GPS receivers.
On the other hand, it is conceivable that encryption could be gradually integrated into the FAA system without adding significant delays. For example, by adding a few simple hooks to the current design that would permit encryption to be put in later.
And it is also possible that this might be done in a way that could be accepted possibly even preferred internationally. My understanding is that Australia has just adopted a policy requiring encryption of their precise navigational signals.
Fourth, any encryption would require a complex key management infrastructure so that devices could be keyed and rekeyed. Even if key distribution is done electronically, managing the infrastructure could be a major task and administrative burden.
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The key management system could be eliminated by using a proprietary nonkeyed encryption method. This is the approach taken by the commercial GPS providers. However, it would not work with the FAA's system. Since the algorithms must be made public in order to achieve widespread acceptability and standardization, the encryption would be readily defeated. It is conceivable, however, for this limited application, that the key management could be simplified so that it is not onerous.
On balance the arguments against encryption seem stronger than those for. However, given that there are good arguments on both sides, the question of whether to encrypt might best be resolved by establishing a national policy on precise navigational signals over our airspace. I recommend that the Congress review both the national security and safety risks associated with encrypting and not encrypting these signals and consider establishing a policy for these signals.
Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Thank you very much, Dr. Denning, and we will get into questions in a few minutes. But first, we will hear Mr. Noel. I believe that you are going to speak for the remainder of the panel; is that correct?
Mr. NOEL. That is correct.
Mr. DUNCAN. At least as far as an opening statement is concerned. And go ahead and start. And we don't need the light. We will not worry about that.
Mr. NOEL. Okay. Thank you. However, with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to verbally give excerpts from my testimony, but yet submit the entire written document for the record.
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Mr. DUNCAN. That will be fine.
Mr. NOEL. I would also like to start out with a very brief story, which I think will represent the situation we find ourselves in following the panel before. This is about a fourth grade teacher who assigned an assignment to her class, creative writing assignment, and it was to take nursery rhymes and parables and rewrite things from a different perspective.
The fourth grade teacher got things back, one was the story of the three pigs from the perspective of the wolf. She got one that came back and when she looked at it, it was it is dark inside here. I can't see a thing. And she went and asked the child what it was all about. And the child said, well, this is the story of the ''Princess and the Pea'' from the perspective of the pea.
My point here being there is a lot of different ways to look at this problem. And we want to talk about a different way than perhaps you heard from the previous panel.
Our position today is that there is a request for your understanding and help in a matter that threatens the survival of the three private enterprise commercial companies you see before you today, as well as a growing group of other U.S. entrepreneurial and established companies throughout the U.S. who are participants in our industry. We are in the business of providing nationwide and in some cases worldwide augmented GPS services to commercial and government users of GPS receivers.
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The DOD-approved DGPS corrections generated by our companies' respective technologies can reduce these errors for commercial operations from the 100-meter range to less than 1 meter.
The commercial DGPS service industry today has the capability and technology already developed and installed throughout North America and in many countries. Since 1986, the commercial sector has had WAAS-type systems operational.
Today's commercially available DGPS services are at least as good as the proposed Federal DGPS systems, are available and in use today by a wide variety of GPS users in a wide variety of applications and generally outperform the requirements of Federal-proposed GPS systems.
This competitive, young, and growing U.S. private DGPS service industry needs the support of its government through noninterference so it can grow and develop, rather than the competition of its government, which can cause it to wither and probably die. Astute and responsible government officials in this era of reduced Federal budgets should be looking for ways that they can use private sector investment to achieve their goals.
We collectively believe that the cheapest and best way to develop augmented GPS service for the U.S. is to utilize existing private sector companies' networks and technology in conjunction with government oversight and standards to ensure service quality and performance.
Page 50 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCThe free distribution of DGPS corrections by the FAA threatens the existence of private enterprise companies. The Federal Aviation Administration has proposed to provide freely available, government-designed, built, operated and funded GPS systems to provide for the requirements of their agency.
In order to justify this system, the DOT and FAA have pointed out the commercial benefit of having freely available DGPS provided for all other government and commercial GPS applications, including all land local applications. The resultant government DGPS service would be freely provided to users in all markets, not just aviation and marine radio navigation, and in competition with fee-based private sector systems already in place.
This is clearly overstepping the boundaries of the Federal radio navigation plan. At least five private sector companies employing nearly a thousand Americans would have their business put in serious jeopardy, if not outright failure, by these actions.
Contrary to the NAPA statements that were made in the previous panel, we know of no company in the DGPS service industry that is not vitally threatened by the proposed WAAS free DGPS services, as well as the Coast Guard free DGPS services.
Already, the announced intentions of the DOT and the FAA in this area are depressing what would otherwise be a robust market for DGPS services. The FAA never even provided an opportunity for the existing commercial companies currently providing DGPS services to bid their existing infrastructure and DGPS service capability to meet government requirements.
The cost of the proposed Federal DGPS system is proposed to be 1.5 to $1.7 billion dollars and that excludes the cost of the satellite segment. The cost is substantially more than it needs to be if the existing private sector systems had been taken into account. Cost reduction means savings that could be applied to other priority government programs or simply applied as a savings to taxpayers.
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Serious technical flaws exist in the FAA DGPS system that can put safety and life at substantial risk. The FAA plans to broadcast unprotected DGPS corrections to the user via the GPS frequency called the L-1 band. This allows precise positioning capability to be used by anyone, friend or foe, equipped with a DGPS receiver.
The effectiveness of the strategic military advantage of GPS will be neutralized and a major initial objective for creating GPS in the first place will be compromised. One government arm is clearly undoing the policies of another and at taxpayer expense.
Terrorists can easily produce a signal, spoofing, that looks like a GPS satellite, but with false ranging data, even easier to generate and more difficult to detect, with the current FAA architecture of false differential corrections. The inability to detect either of these events would be disastrous to any form of aviation, whether in route to a destination or during a landing approach.
The safety and life implications are frightening to contemplate. No solutions have been proposed so far for this problem.
The second problem is the threat to national security. If a freely available signal via the L-1 band were available to any GPS receiver, it could be utilized by the enemy missiles or aircraft for mid-course navigation corrections. This would enable an enemy to pinpoint and destroy key commercial and military targets.
Freely available differential GPS subsidizes foreign consumer electronics manufacturers at the expense of U.S. companies. The original decision to make GPS signals available free of charge has provided a large subsidy to foreign consumer electronics manufacturers.
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For example, the Japanese GPS industry in 1994 has already reached $240 million. Based on visits to almost all of these Japanese companies, it is clear that they are poised to exploit the U.S. GPS receiver and related GPS application markets.
The U.S. DGPS service industry, in its negotiations to provide many of these companies DGPS service on a fee basis, is ongoing. Implementation of a free nationwide service will continue to subsidize these Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers and penalize innovative U.S. companies in this business and market area.
DGPS signals broadcast by any government bodies such as the FAA should be protected or encrypted for integrity and accuracy to ensure that the segment deriving the benefit pays the burden. Protection or encryption of DGPS signals corrects some of the technical deficiencies of the WAAS as proposed and provides a method to ensure that the user segment receiving the benefit of the government system pays the burden and provides a method for protecting the DGPS private sector service companies' investment and future business prospects.
The private sector DGPS service companies all encrypt their DGPS correction analysis to protect them from unauthorized access by users who are not subscribers. The use of encryption by the FAA WAAS and local area DGPS systems will provide an answer to DOD concerns about compromising the military value of the GPS system, as the GPS corrections would no longer be broadcast in the clear.
This approach could effectively provide a DGPS signal that is in the clear as far as users of aviation GPS receivers with the necessary software encryption modules are concerned and would meet government desires to make these DGPS aviation navigation services available to all aviation navigation users who need them.
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This would mean that those users who are paying into the aviation trust fund would get the DGPS navigation service at no additional charge and would be in accordance with the Federal Radio and Navigation Plan.
Under this approach, all other DGPS applications and particularly all land-based DGPS applications would be served directly using protected signals by the private DGPS service providers on a for-fee subscription basis as is the current industry practice.
Investigations have shown that the FAA DGPS alternatives can be encrypted with public algorithms to ease international concerns and that private key management methods exist that can be implemented with minimal schedule impact and managed without unreasonable expenditures of resources and money. According to one bidder on the FAA WAAS system, who did evaluation of encryption, less than $50 would be the cost per receiver for adding encryption capability.
In fact, a second proposal that has been made to the FAA suggests that addition of key management can be achieved for as little as $250,000 per year. This seems to be a small additional price to pay for the benefits and problem solutions encryption provides.
It should be apparent that the private sector DGPS service industry representatives before you today feel strongly that the WAAS system should have GPS augmentation integrity and accuracy signals protected or encrypted as a prerequisite for further approval and funding.
Page 54 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCThere is considerable evidence and information available that indicates that DGPS signal encryption and required key management can be done economically and with not unreasonable schedule impacts.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to bring before the subcommittee the issues and concerns of the three major companies in the U.S. commercial GPS augmentation service industry. This concludes my testimony. I and my colleagues from the industry are available for questions.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Noel. And before we begin the questioning, I just want to ask, do any of the other three, Mr. Haley, Mr. Kaiser, Mr. Bogle, would any of you like to, without reading any statement, just tell us specifically from your hearts how you feel about what is happening and what effect this is going to have on you and your companies? Anybody want to say anything along that line?
Mr. KAISER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like our friends, we have been in this business for some period of time. I would like to make three points, some of which have been made by Mr. Noel.
Number one, the difficulty and cost of encryption is greatly overstated. You only have to look here where you have three companies, small companies in comparison to the size of the FAA, that have done it. It is not that difficult.
Now, maybe there is this great rush to get on with the WAAS and no delay could be tolerated with the WAAS. But, respectfully, that shouldn't be tolerated. This encryption issue needs to be investigated. It has not been investigated to this point in time.
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Secondly, there are serious national and international security issues. An unencrypted signal made little sense prior to Oklahoma. After Oklahoma it makes no sense.
And thirdly, you have a commercial reality. Service is being provided. This government has spent 10 billion on the basic system. It is going to spend another 1.7. Yes, that is designed for commercial aircraft. Yes, that will be recovered in part from that industry. But why allow it to flop over and provide a free service to farmers and people that it was never intended for?
If the FAA for some reason has to get in that business, at least they should charge for it and not offer a free service and put private enterprise out of business. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Bogle.
Mr. BOGLE. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I completely endorse my colleagues' comments here. And just as a matter of maybe expanding a little bit on where we are coming from, this is not three companies here who have suddenly appeared on the scene with a gripe.
The company which I represent has been in the business since 1959 and it's sole business is providing precise positions services. We had a WAAS-type system developed and operational as long ago as 1986. This is United States technology at work here. It is working very well in a capitalistic enterprise.
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We have users out there who are willing to pay for the system. There is no argument that people out there aren't willing to pay. We are proving that. It is a very nascent business as far as land applications are concerned right now. But we believe that our technology, our capability and our markets far outstrip anything that the FAA can do.
And it is a very serious concern to us. As I say, there are a lot of people within our company that depend on precise positioning for a living. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Thank you. Mr. Haley, is there anything you wish to tell us?
Mr. HALEY. Yes, I guess there is just one point I would like to make. As well as putting the systems up in the United States, we have now got our system installed in Australia, the UK, France, Holland, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden. It has been accepted as a standard in Europe and pretty much throughout Asia.
One of the things that we have found, one of the things that slowed us down was actually negotiating with the local Departments of Defense from a security point of view. And security for them is a big problem.
And we have seen now the first country, Australia, turn around and say they are not going to allow any navigation signals unless they are encrypted. And I believe you are going to see the same thing come out of all of these European countries.
Page 57 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCAnd one of the goals of the WAAS is to make this a worldwide system. Because, unfortunately, airplanes do not just fly to the United States. They leave this country and fly to other countries. And I think for the WAAS to be accepted internationally it is going to have to be encrypted and each country is going to have to, and in fact, does want control over the differential corrections. They look at themselves as sovereign nations and what they don't want is a satellite sitting over the top here broadcasting differential corrections that they have no control over in a config that they cannot turn off.
And just take a situation like the war in Iraq. We have got scud missiles flopping around all over the place not very accurately. You start putting a free differential service from the FAA sitting over the Middle East and you have scud missiles landing exactly where they want them to land with an inability to turn the service off because the service is there for aviation.
So we think that the encryption solves a lot of problems and one of the problems it solves is international acceptance. Thank you very much.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, very much. Rather than me continuing at this point, I am going to turn to Mr. Mineta for any questions that he may have.
Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me first very quickly ask, with all these systems you have installed in these other countries, their use is for what?
Page 58 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCMr. HALEY. Their use is for marine, for vehicle navigation, vehicle tracking, surveying, golf courses. I mean, timing applications. They are using in all sorts of applications. Crop dusting. I think we have a lot more aviation miles on our service with crop dusters than the FAA has flown with their service.
The GPS is basically pervasive. We are dealing with where am I? What time is it? And you are dealing with a very basic thing and you are starting to see GPS go entirely through the infrastructure. And in fact there is not a cellular site in the United States that doesn't have a GPS service on it for timing.
AT&T is putting in high speed switching networks and the timing they are using for this is GPS. Some people turn around and say, well, we will jam GPS if we have a problem. Well, you don't turn off where am I. You are going to turn off all the cellular networks. You are going to turn off all the high-speed switching networks and turning off everything because jamming doesn't differentiate who the user is. End of story.
Mr. MINETA. Mr. Noel, in your testimony you indicate that FAA has not given companies such as yours an opportunity to make proposals for FAA to use your company's networks and technology to augment the GPS system. Could you give us more detail on why it would not have been feasible for companies such as yours to make a proposal in response to the FAA's RFP?
Mr. NOEL. I think the central issue there and our central point is that there are a number of mechanisms, systems in place as I have tried to describe here today, the FAA came forth with their own design, predesign rather than going out first, as is often done in government contracting and requesting a contract on design and architecture phase.
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They came out with a fixed architecture. Their fixed prescribed architecture in no way took into account that there were existing systems out there. Therefore we were not able to directly impact the design level or input into the design level, point one.
Having a preprescribed architecture to bid against was an alternative that perhaps we could have made a proposal on. However, it would probably not have been as compliant as the FAA's final decision process required, because we would be proposing systems that were more based on our direct technology there.
We could have, if we had been a larger government contracting corporation, perhaps bid on it, but we were a much smaller company and it is very difficult for a small company to bid on such a massive project.
So the issues are architectural first, and the fact that we were not allowed to be involved in the early phases. And we believe a lot of the savings are involved in looking at the existing architectures out there and leveraging those rather than starting all over from ground zero.
Mr. MINETA. Had the RTCA, had they looked at this up to this point, the radio technical—what is it? Someone help me out. RTCA? RTCA, have they looked at this at all? Does anyone on the panel know? If not—
Mr. HALEY. They define a format by which data should be transmitted to airplanes. That is primarily what they have worked on. They have not worked on architectures or determined whether this is an appropriate architecture or not. They just basically defined a data format for the WAAS to the user.
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We have a system up and running now that is almost identical to the proposed WAAS. One of the comments made by the previous panel was that a WAAS style system would not impinge on our business because it would not deliver the same level of accuracy. With all due respect, that is completely inaccurate. We provide with a WAAS-style system today submeter service and it will impinge directly on our business.
Mr. MINETA. I was just going to ask that question. It is my understanding that among other things that the FAA's specifications for the WAAS required that the system be able 99.999 percent of the time and the users get notice in 6.1 seconds if the system is not working.
Do you agree with those standards? And would you have been able to meet those standards or would there have been required to be some kind of modification to your systems if those were the standards?
Mr. BOGLE. Sir, as I said earlier, we had a WAAS-type system as early as 1986. This is full-theater ranging satellites as an independent satellite-based positioning system, which is not related to GPS at all. And this, in fact, is the integrity portion and the GPS delivery portion of the FAA WAAS.
And you mentioned earlier about the RTCA committee. When we developed this system in 1986, it was essentially for marine use and we were, of course, working with 1986 technology. And I really could not have seen that system in any stretch of the imagination as being suitable for aircraft.
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But you have to understand that as commercial companies, we are not allowed to provide service for Federal radio navigation. We are forbidden by Federal regulation, in fact. So it is not a prime development cause for any commercial company to development systems, navigation or positioning systems, for aviation use.
And I think it is fair to say that most of our technologies are, in fact, pointed towards marine use specifically for off shore exploration and for land and for vehicle use.
Could any of these systems meet the FAA requirements? The answer is, yes. Given a set of specifications I am quite confident that we could have developed and come up with a solution. As my colleague has just mentioned, though the problem is that when you are given a solution that it is more difficult to come up with the technology when you already have an existing service. I don't know if that explains it.
Mr. MINETA. Well, let me ask, because since the navigational system is dependent so much on accuracy, and whether it is the 6.1 seconds notification or the 99.999 percent standard, is that something that is reasonable, unreasonable? Is it something that companies can meet or are these parameters that are set that make it just about virtually impossible for someone from let's say, a commercial off-the-shelf, some bells and whistles to be able to meet that kind of a standard?
Mr. BOGLE. Yes, it is perfectly reasonable I think for the application, safety being the primary driver here. The technology, if I can give you an example, sir, for our original system we spent $10 million in implementing the system in 1986. Given the FAA's budget, I think I can speak for my colleagues. I would give a quite positive, yes, it could be done for $500 million and change in the bank.
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Mr. HALEY. A lot of change in the bank. $500 million for this system is an inordinate amount of money. We did some estimates. The FAA requirements can be met with available ground-based systems that exist today and our estimate is that it can be done for about $200 million with off-the-shelf technology from American companies that exist today. It is not as grandiose as the satellite plan.
Mr. MINETA. Is this a—what is that theory? NIH?
Mr. HALEY. A lot like that, I think. And it is not necessarily systems from us. You have got companies like E-Systems and Wilcox, who won the WAAS, actually make ground wave systems that can meet the entire requirements with a ground-based application.
They may not say that now that they won the WAAS contract, but certainly prior to that. E-Systems, Tremble Navigation, and Wilcox all believe that the FAA requirements can be met with a different architecture for substantially less money than the $500 million being proposed on the WAAS and be done with the technology that exists today without all of the software risks that are in the current FAA schedule. These products exist today.
Mr. MINETA. Now, recently, just to change the subject a little bit, I drove a car. Whose system would, let's say, Avis be using in theirs?
Mr. HALEY. That is a system developed by Zyxel. It is like Delco, a Japanese company. Probably the single biggest market for GPS is going to be in the vehicle navigation market. I think there are around 25 Japanese companies that currently manufacture in-vehicle navigation units. I think there are zero American companies that manufacture those products.
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And the primary beneficiary actually of turning off selective availability is going to be that market. So what we are going to be there is—we are in contract negotiations and have agreements with Japanese companies where they pay us money when they ship those products. And what we now have is the government turning around and saying throw that contract away because we are going to provide it for free.
But you have the Zyxel system developed by a Japanese company.
Mr. MINETA. Well, I notice that many of the cabs in Tokyo have these systems. If you have an address in Tokyo, it doesn't mean anything, and so the only way the cabdrivers can really know where something is is by having some in-vehicle navigation system. And so their cabs and many, many other individuals now have in their own cars something to help them get from here to there.
Mr. HALEY. In Japan they are now selling in excess of 40,000 in-vehicle navigation units per month. And Sony and Pioneer have now both announced systems in the United States. And hope to do just as well here.
Unfortunately, the United States companies have not really gone into that market. Basically, they have looked at it as a consumer electronics market and they feel it is difficult to compete with the Sonys and the Pioneers and the Clarions in the consumer electronics market, unfortunately.
Mr. MINETA. Let me thank the panel very much and, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Mineta.
Dr. Denning, you said, if I understood your testimony correctly, that encryption would delay implementation of a full GPS system by several year's time and add tens of billions to the cost. Is that correct? Is that what you said? And how do you respond, I believe it was Mr. Kaiser who said that he felt that the costs and problems associated with encryption had been greatly exaggerated and would not be that difficult.
Dr. DENNING. First of all, let me elaborate a little bit why the FAA could not do encryption the same way these companies are doing it. Basically, when you do encryption something has to be kept secret. And normally what that is is a key and the algorithm, the method of scrambling may or may not be kept secret.
With the Department of Defense, all their algorithms are classified and nobody has a clue what they are. In this particular case, they are basically using a secret algorithm, a proprietary algorithm. It is not made public and so they don't need to use any keys. It doesn't provide a real high level of protection against somebody being able to get in, but it is good enough. It is good enough to protect their commercial interests.
You couldn't do that, I don't think, with the FAA's system because I think you would have to make the algorithms and the methods public, particularly if you are looking at trying to establish international acceptability. And you are trying to get widespread acceptance and adoption, it seems that you would probably have to make these algorithms public.
Page 65 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOCOnce you do that, you have to have secret keys and once you do that, you have to have a key management infrastructure and that is where the problems are. That is the hard part. That is the costly part, just figuring out how you are going to design that and implement that and everything would take several years to do.
Now, would that delay the operation of the entire WAAS system, I think is a very difficult question because what you might look at doing is say, well, we will do encryption, but not on the short term. We will do it more on the longer term and phase it in and maybe not try to change the current design substantially, but put a few hooks in so that you could add encryption on a full scale in an upgrade to the system at some time in the future.
But you would have to look a lot more carefully exactly how you would put the encryption in. How you would manage the keys and do all of that in order to know exactly what the cost would be and in order to know exactly what the time schedule would be. Encryption—doing encryption with key management is not an easy thing to do.
Mr. DUNCAN. Let me ask you this. You my have heard me earlier mention the part of the NAPA report that says that the market for GPS goods and services is going to expand. They predict from 2 billion a year to 31 billion a year. And the quote from the interview with Mr. Tremble in which he says this is going to be in 25 million electronic devices by the year 2000.
Do you—is it your feeling that—do you gentlemen agree with those estimates or those statements? Do you think this is a market that is about to explode or take off? And is it your position that if the government doesn't come in and compete that your companies can take off with this phenomenal growth? Is that—basically are you trying to say that you can't compete with the Federal Government and you don't want them to compete with you?
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Mr. NOEL. Mr. Chairman, we agree that the GPS marketplace in the commercial environment is about to take off. This is an extremely good situation for all the GPS manufacturers of equipment and I believe from their perspective, Mr. Tremble being from that community, that they will benefit no matter what the situation is in terms of the government policy on SA or the issue of encryption or nonencryption on the Wide Area Augmentation System.
We in the differential portion of the GPS business also believe that the market for differential service will expand. That has many dimensions and it has various levels of accuracy requirements in order to go and be able to serve that marketplace.
We believe that the largest marketplace that is going to be available for differential services is going to be the vehicle navigation market. In fact, that is going to be one of the major segments that is going to be in the next five to 10 years.
That market is a market that is best served with signals in the area of 10-meter accuracy or so. In other words, that is adequate. As an example, to our businesses that is one business that probably wouldn't be there if the government were offering free services.
There are other application areas where service accuracies of government systems—I will use an example. There is currently a Coast Guard systems that have been installed for the purpose of marine radio navigation. Beacon systems that are being installed on the coast of the U.S. and up and down the Mississippi River.
The Radio Navigation Plan has said that the government systems should provide 8 to 20 meters of service. I believe in the upcoming Radio Navigation Plan that is going to be published, the Coast Guard is now saying 10 meters is their accuracy level.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Let me stop you right there. You know the FAA basically says that the WAAS system is going to go down to 6 meters accuracy and most of your services go to 1 meter and that, therefore, you shouldn't be as concerned as you are. How do you respond to that?
Mr. NOEL. Well, if I may, Mr. Chairman, just make one more statement because it is the important point.
Mr. DUNCAN. Sure.
Mr. NOEL. Is that the actual implementation of this government system, the Coast Guard system is actually now in the range of 1 meter. It is being offered out there to people in the land-based environment at the 1-meter level. That is what people are saying in the local areas, separate from the policy statement, causing us problems of disruption in that marketplace. So that is my key point.
There is the statement of what accuracy should be and there is what the real accuracy should be and then we have problems in our marketplace with that.
Mr. HALEY. In relation to the comment with the WAAS thing at 6 meters, they actually have the requirement in the horizontal of 17 meters, but in the vertical they have the requirement of 4.5 meters.
To achieve a vertical accuracy of 4.5 meters you need to be around about 2 meters in the horizontal. And we have a system installed identical to the WAAS and we get submeter, so we know that that service will be provided around submeter. So irrespective of what they say their requirements are, we know that they are going to be out there providing a submeter service.
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Mr. KAISER. Mr. Chairman, if I might add, I think the same issue exists with respect to this so-called effective SA. It is all based on one critical assumption, what is going to be the accuracy if SA comes off. And the Coast Guard accuracy is greater than the Coast Guard has proclaimed.
We know what accuracy we are getting on a wide area system and it is certainly one meter and that is what the WAAS will be. And if SA comes off, we are entirely confident it will be 3 meters, not some 20-meter figure. So if it is 3 meters, which we firmly believe will be the case—and tha