Colorado at center of new global positioning technology GPS III: A nice summary from the Denver Post about the upcoming upgrade of the US GPS system starting in 2012 - with specific references to businesses in the Colorado Springs, Aurora, and Boulder communities.

Some of the additional features include the new L1C signal and higher signal strength as well as the increase in location accuracy (from 3m to 1m), the new search and rescue distress signals, jamming resistance, satellite life expectancy (increased from 7.5 years to 15 years), launch and deployment of multiple satellites (dual launches) with a cost savings of nearly $50 million per satellite.

The article also discusses the impact on users from a variety of markets; Agriculture, 911 and Emergency First Responders, Road Construction, Aviation, Weather, as well as the monitoring of tectonic plate movements by geologists.  This includes the capability of the system to accurately time the processing of several different types of market transactions using their on-board atomic clocks.