Fifteen years ago, when the GPS system malfunctioned, most people didn’t notice. Sure, it was used by pilots and even banks for setting time. But the average person had no need to know. Now, however, GPS is ubiquitous. Like with the recent Blackberry outage, we are reminded that these technologies are not perfect, are not 100% failsafe, and are not guaranteed to be on 24×7x365.

Earlier this month, researchers from Cornell University announced that on Dec. 6, 2006 the radio energy emitting from a solar flare interfered with the communication between some GPS receivers and the GPS satellites. According to reports, scientists are concerned that there was interference with GPS from what they thought was a relatively minor solar flare event. Scientists expect increased solar flare activity in 2011, which could lead to more significant outages. However, the timing and intensity of solar flare events is generally unpredictable, and the Dec. event was indeed unexpected (not to mention the largest ever recorded).

Solar flares are not the only threat to GPS. Back in 1999 there was an issue with the way GPS counted and stored week numbers, termed end-of-week (EOW) rollover, which caused some older receivers to malfunction. There was also concern regarding year 2000 date compliance. Satellites could malfunction for any of several reasons.

Those who rely on GPS need to develop a backup plan for temporary outages. While the system is fairly robust, one could find themselves without service at a critical juncture. Heavy users such as the airlines and military have such plans, so should businesses. Consumers stand to be inconvenienced. But technology of all types can fail, so it is a good idea to expect such failures and have a plan for dealing with their occurrence. Time to go find those paper maps.