Before we wax poetic on the Netherlands contribution of TomTom, or any other non-USA's firms GPS offerings, time for a little flag waving here.
These inexpensive
receivers are only possible because of the 24 GPS
NAVSTAR satellites. Conceived, designed, and built for U.S. Military use in the USA, and launched on U.S. hardware by the Department of Defense. Paid for by U.S. Citizens completely. They are about as all-American as you can get. Each satellite lasts about 10 years, I hear, so it is a continuing project to launch and maintain these medium-earth-orbit satellites. Oh, yes--I think there's a non-functioning Russian version, the Japanese have something in the works as do the Europeans, and so to the Chinese. That's all wonderful. All the GPS receivers in common use, use the American GPS system at least for now.
These have been in military use since 1978, long before the U.S. allowed commercial use of them at reduced resolution. If you think your TomTom is accurate, you should see what the US Military's versions can do at full resolution and accuracy.
So, next time your made in China TomTom, Magellan, Garmin, or what have you tells you to turn left at the next traffic signal look to the skies and thank the often maligned but good old USA for providing and maintaining the infrastructure necessary to make your receiver work.
This is no maligning of our friendly relations with the Netherlands. By all rights we should be speaking Dutch here anyway; they did a great job of exploring, and settling here, had a thriving city of New Amsterdam,(New York now for those that forget their history) and everything was
humming along just fine until the Brits came along, and told the Dutch, "Great job, boys, we'll take it from here..." and sent them packing.
OK, I'm leaving the podium now and taking the flag with me. And, I'm running fast, too!
