On 15 December 2016, Europe's satellite navigation system Galileo started offering initial services to public authorities, businesses and citizens.

Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic, responsible for the Energy Union, said: "Geo-localisation is at the heart of the ongoing digital revolution with new services that transform our daily lives.

Galileo will increase geo-location precision ten-fold and enable the next generation of location-based technologies; such as autonomous cars, connected devices, or smart city services. Today I call on European entrepreneurs and say: imagine what you can do with Galileo – don't wait, innovate!"

Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska, responsible for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, said: "Galileo offering initial services is a major achievement for Europe and a first delivery of our recent Space Strategy. This is the result of a concerted effort to design and build the most accurate satellite navigation system in the world. It demonstrates the technological excellence of Europe, its know-how and its commitment to delivering space-based services and applications. No single European country could have done it alone."

With the Declaration of Initial Services, Galileo started to deliver, in conjunction with GPS, the following services free of charge:

• Support to emergency operations: With the Search and Rescue Service (SAR), people placing a distress call from a Galileo-enabled beacon can be found and rescued more quickly, since the detection time will be reduced to only 10 minutes. 
• More accurate navigation for citizens: The Galileo Open Service offers a free mass-market service for positioning, navigation and timing that can be used by Galileo-enabled chipsets in smartphones or in car navigation systems. People using navigation devices in cities, where satellite signals can often be blocked by tall buildings, will particularly benefit from the increase in positioning accuracy provided by Galileo.
• Better time synchronisation for critical infrastructures: Galileo will, through its high precision clocks, enable more resilient time synchronisation of banking and financial transactions, telecommunications and energy distribution networks such as smart-grids. This will help them operate more efficiently.
• Secure services for public authorities: Galileo will also support public authorities such as civil protection services, humanitarian aid services, customs officers and the police through the Public Regulated Service. It will offer a particularly robust and fully encrypted service for government users during national emergencies or crisis situations, such as terrorist attacks, to ensure continuity of services.

The Declaration of Galileo Initial Services means that the Galileo satellites and ground infrastructure are now operationally ready. These signals will be highly accurate but not available all the time. That's why during the initial phase, the first Galileo signals will be used in combination with other satellite navigation systems, like GPS.

Source: gsa.europa.eu