Making GNSS-RTK services pay
Rizos, Chris & Joel van Cranenbroeck
The authors are regularly fielding questions by (potential and current) GNSS permanent receiver network operators on ways to recoup investment and on how this network infrastructure could be turned into a profitable business. One approach is to try to find a core of users who are prepared to pay for the GNSS-RTK services. But this is only feasible if the number of users and the fees charged are sufficient to generate a reasonable return-oninvestment. On the other hand, there are those who advocate that there is no need to recoup investment, that the installed GNSS infrastructure should be seen as public infrastructure such as roads. The downside of this is the quality need not be assured as it is a service provided as iss. Both operating models also assume that the user or consumer of such GNSS-RTK services operates top-of-the-line GNSS receivers, typically dual-frequency receivers with sophisticated carrier phase-based RTK software installed on the units. These tend to be the most expensive GNSS products currently on the market. This paper investigates options for new business models. One of these is based on the Client- Server model. What if instead of broadcasting RTK/RTCM corrections and placing the onus of obtaining a final solution on the user and his equipment, advantage was taken of the existing network system infrastructure to compute the userrs coordinates for them? Final (position) solutions for all (logged) users would be simply computed as a by-product of the continuous network processes all the time satisfying the quality and integrity criteria implemented at the network administrator level. After all, there exist already a number of web-based services for the generation of coordinates via the post-processing of data submitted by the user. Why not extend this functionality to real-time processing?
Event: XXIII International FIG Congress : Shaping the change
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