Pheasant Surprise
Member
- Location
- Woodbridge, Suffolk
I'd say to anyone thinking of investing in GNSS precision ag kit in the foreseeable future, ask your intended provider what their plans are re capability, cost and upgrade path to the BeiDou constellation.
The Chinese seem to have stolen a march on our European friends with Galileo and in the space of 3 years or so have expanded BeiDou quite rapidly, from a regional to a global network, and still growing in capability. They still don't have enough sats visible over Europe and the U.K. for long enough periods in the day but in reality, it won't be too long before BeiDou is third main useful GNSS constellation in Europe behind GPS and GLONASS. I'd say 18 months to 2 years for full coverage, given their rate of launches and plans for more.
On the back of this, there are also a raft of very hungry Chinese navigation and positioning equipment providers looking to sell into western markets.
Will this signal a sea change in precision ag. pricing policy, which despite being cheaper than say survey or construction, personally I think has been kept artificially high for too long? A depressed Ag economy might be the right timing to provide inroads with more budget hardware.
The Chinese seem to have stolen a march on our European friends with Galileo and in the space of 3 years or so have expanded BeiDou quite rapidly, from a regional to a global network, and still growing in capability. They still don't have enough sats visible over Europe and the U.K. for long enough periods in the day but in reality, it won't be too long before BeiDou is third main useful GNSS constellation in Europe behind GPS and GLONASS. I'd say 18 months to 2 years for full coverage, given their rate of launches and plans for more.
On the back of this, there are also a raft of very hungry Chinese navigation and positioning equipment providers looking to sell into western markets.
Will this signal a sea change in precision ag. pricing policy, which despite being cheaper than say survey or construction, personally I think has been kept artificially high for too long? A depressed Ag economy might be the right timing to provide inroads with more budget hardware.
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