[OSM-talk] US to spend $8bn upgrading GPS constellation

[Maarten Deen]

On Wed, 26 May 2010 13:50:58 +0200, Frank Fesevur
<ffes at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> 2010/5/26 Maarten Deen:
>> From the article:
>>> Without it, ATMs would stop spitting out cash, Wall Street could
blunder
>>> billions of dollars in stock trades and clueless drivers would get
lost.
>>
>> Can someone explain to me why an ATM would need a GPS in order to
>> dispense
>> cash? Or why Wall Street needs it to trade? These things are
stationary.
>> Ok, maybe stock traders can use it to see where shipments of the
>> companies
>> the trade in are, but that seems pretty far fetched. Still, ATMs?
> 
> I think it is the exact clock of the GPS that is used for those
> systems, but that is just a guess.

I would assume that implementing NTP in software is cheaper. ATMs are
wired into a bank's network. And do you really need hundreths of a second
accuracy for an ATM transaction?
And how about ATMs that are indoors and can't get a lock?

Maarten