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December 28, 2012

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Beidou launches in Asia-Pacific

China launched its homegrown navigation system to Asia-Pacific users yesterday as it bids to compete with the dominant US Global Positioning System.

The Beidou system's services include positioning, navigation, timing and text messaging, spokesman Ran Chengqi told a press conference yesterday.

"The homegrown system aims to take 70 to 80 percent of the now GPS-dominated domestic market by 2020 when the network will cover the whole world," Ran said.

China expects Beidou to generate a 400 billion yuan (US$63 billion) annual market for services to the transport, meteorology and telecommunications sectors by then.

Beidou currently consists of 16 satellites, and another 40 satellites will be launched in 10 years by which time the global system will be available around the world, Ran said.

Beidou, which means the Big Dipper in Chinese, has functionality and performance "comparable" to the GPS system, but is cheaper, Ran said.

It has a positioning accuracy of 10 meters, speed accuracy of 0.2 meters per second and timing accuracy of 50 nanoseconds, the same as the GPS system. Beidou is the only satellite navigation system in the world that offers telecommunication services. That means apart from giving users location and time information, Beidou can also send users' information to other people and communicate with users via text messages.

"The function will be helpful especially during rescue work," Ran said.

The United States is currently the dominant provider of navigation services for vehicles in China, with its GPS system used in 95 percent of the country's navigation market.

To break its dependence on the US system, China invested billions of yuan in the development of Beidou, Ran said, but the investment was lower than that of the system's competitors.

With an eye on the global market in the next 10 years, China plans to spend 40 billion yuan on system development, Ran said.

China began trial operations of the system a year ago. More than 100,000 vehicles, including public transport, in nine provinces and cities across China are using the Beidou system.

In Guangzhou, some 10,000 cars of governmental officials have been installed with the system to supervise the use of cars and cut down on unauthorized private use.

Also yesterday, the China Satellite Navigation Office released technical details, in both Chinese and English, that will enable enterprises and experts from home and abroad to develop the system's core techniques and modules.

China launched the first satellite for the Beidou system in 2000, and a preliminary version of the system has been used in traffic control, weather forecasting and disaster relief work on a trial basis since 2003.

More than 1,000 Beidou terminals were used after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to provide information from the disaster area.

The system was also used during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the World Expo 2010 Shanghai to pinpoint traffic congestion and supervise venues.


 

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