This is very interesting. Does anyone know if it requires activation on mobile phones or if it's automatic.

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Back in the day GPS use to get an accuracy of 10 meters, then it dropped to about 2m and now this new one is down to 25cm in perfect conditions. Kewl!

GPS3 satellites are also being launched by the USA which are also more accurate and less susceptible to jamming. Those GPS guided ordnance won't miss now.

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NAVSTAR (GPS) is the USA’s GNSS constellation. Galileo is the EU’s. Previously GPS signals were deprecated which was called “selective availability.” Since 2000, full GPS signals are available to the public. What matters is the receiver and what frequencies it can receive, not the signals themselves.

Selective Availability was the intentional degradation of the civilian C/A code. This was turned off in 2000 by executive order - civilian receivers have been capable of sub-meter precision since

There is a second encrypted "p code" reserved for the military on a different frequency - this allows for even greater precision (not sure how much greater) because you can use the two signals at different frequencies to "cancel out" ionospheric errors. But there are other ways to handle ionospheric errors, depending on the application

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Youre right, but i already felt i was too in the weeds for a reddit comment lol

Point is, until SA was turned off even with DC high precision wasnt possible (to my knowledge, at least - i know my gps professor had spent some time trying to find workarounds to SA but didnt get much success before it became moot)

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Any idea how accurate it was at the time? Its been several years since i did anything with gps so im pretty rusty, appreciate the clarifications

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I belive it's automatic, but will work better if your smartphone, device or car have the latest software/ firmware update. So the chip manufacturer enable it through that approach, if hardware specifications are met.

If your phone/device is compatible with Galileo, the signal received will automatically be used for all location-based applications, such as Google Maps or Uber. To find out if your phone is compatible with Galileo, you can visit our website https://www.usegalileo.eu/EN/. Galileo has been in operation since 2016 and is a global navigation satellite system, meaning that it covers all countries in the world.

If you would like to see which satellites of the constellation your phone is using, we recommend that you download the GPSTest app (available only for Android).

But which phones and other devices support this new HAS mode for improved accuracy? They have to have specific support for it and not just general Galileo support, right?

The Galileo High Accuracy Service (HAS) provides free of charge Precise Point Positioning (PPP) corrections, in the Galileo E6-B data component (HAS SIS) and by Internet (HAS IDD) for Galileo and GPS (single and multi-frequency) to achieve real-time improved user positioning performances.

In order to start using the Galileo HAS service, you will need a HAS-capable user equipment. Such device shall be capable of:

1. Tracking the Galileo and GPS signals supported/corrected by the HAS service. Please refer to the Galileo HAS SDD for details.
2. Receiving, decoding and applying the Galileo HAS corrections. You may receive corrections through either of the following options:

• HAS SIS. Please refer to the Galileo HAS SIS ICD for further details on reception of Galileo HAS corrections through the Galileo E6 signals (E6B data component).

• HAS Internet Data Distribution interface, based on the NTRIP protocol. The Galileo HAS Internet Data Distribution service is available under registration. Please register to the Galileo HAS Internet Data Distribution to start receiving HAS corrections through the Internet.

3. Implementing a PPP algorithm providing a Position, Velocity and Timing (PVT) solution based on the previous steps.

In section 2.4 of the Galileo HAS SDD describes the relevant assumptions at user level and the use of Galileo HAS on smartphones has not been verified. This is due to:

1. The minimum level of quality and stability required on the GNSS observables (code and phase) collected by the user receiver to support high accuracy positioning.
2. The unavailability of smartphones on the market capable to track Galileo E6 signal and implementing the Galileo HAS SIS ICD.

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In case you have further doubts, please refer to our colleagues at the European GNSS Service Centre (GSC), they'll be able to provide more specific answers. You can reach them at: helpdesk@gsc-europa.eu

Thank you for the detailed answer, but it's not really answering my question. Your previous comment stated that

> If your phone/device is compatible with Galileo, the signal received will automatically be used for all location-based applications

but that's probably just for Galileo in general and not the new HAS, right? And so my conclusion is that no phones currently supports this new precision improvement, and we have to wait until Google adds system wide support in a future version of Android or maybe Play Services.

Although if you need detailed phase observations you have to enable that specifically in Android developer settings today, since it uses a lot more power by not switching off the receiver.