What if the GPS stops working?

Just a month of inactivity, GPS can cause great damage to the economy.

Since its completion and full operation in 1995 up to now, the global positioning system (GPS) has been used worldwide. Satellite navigation becomes so important that a lot of everything in our lives depends on it (check-in on smartphones, navigation on cars .).

So what happens if GPS stops working for a month? Research from the RTI International Institute in North Carolina (USA) funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology gives us the answer.

Besides smartphones, GPS is used a lot on car navigation systems and telecommunications and military. (Photo: Gizchina).

Great impact on the economy

After gathering information from more than 200 experts, the researchers revealed that GPS is used in many fields, from agriculture, delivery to offshore rigs.

In the period from 1984 when GPS was first applied commercially to 2017, the economic benefit of GPS was about 1.4 trillion USD.

A one-month GPS shutdown will cost the economy an estimated US $ 1 billion per day (estimated), and $ 1.5 billion in the seasonal period (April and May).

The economic benefits of GPS are enormous. (Photo: Gizchina).

Research shows that the economic benefits of GPS are largely for the telecommunications sector with $ 685.9 billion generated. Telecommunications technology (improving efficiency, reducing costs, benefiting the environment .) is the second field with 325 billion USD. Location services on smartphones ranked third with 215 billion USD.

Many critical systems have stopped working

Each GPS satellite carries atomic clocks that maintain time in accordance with GMT (Greenwich). Accurate time is critical for systems to work smoothly, from the grid to financial transactions. Even the Internet services you are using depend on the GPS clock time to route data.

According to Gizchina, everything is still not affected much after 2 days of turning off GPS, but then the wireless network will have a serious problem, the ability to operate after 30 days is 0-60%.

Not only are the flights affected, the military will lose control of the drones that are tracking nature and terrorists. The weather forecast system will stop working, while television and radio stations cannot transmit signals.

Basically, GPS once inactive will greatly affect the systems that play an important role in our lives.

China's North China Sea Navigation System has more satellites than GPS (US), Galileo (Europe) and GLONASS (Russia). (Photo: Reuters)

In January 2016 when the US Air Force stopped a GPS satellite, the time difference on that satellite was set for other active satellites. The difference is only 13 microseconds (13 milliseconds), but has caused many organs to be in chaos during 12 hours.

According to Geoawesomeness, reports from several areas of the United States and Canada showed that police, firefighting and radio equipment had stopped working. BBC radio even stopped its broadcast for two days.

"GPS was born at a critical time in the telecommunications industry, playing a major role in the digitization of telecommunications infrastructure and the introduction of wireless networks."

"Wireless technology is evolving, with a reliance on high accuracy, so GPS is needed. Many technological trends such as self-driving cars, the Internet of Things (IoT) will help wireless technology to reach the new limits in the future, "the study said.

To reduce reliance on GPS, some countries and regions have developed their own GPS systems such as Russia (GLONASS), China (North China) and Europe (Galileo), operating on a global scale. Meanwhile, Japan and India also develop navigation systems for use within the country.