In this day and age, efficiency and productivity is vital in any industry to keep it afloat and our mapping infrastructure is not exempted therefore we need to rethink and reinvent our future networks to yield maximum benefits. Traditionally, Passive Networks and Classical RTK Surveying have been used, however they contain several limitations. Passive Networks do not permit integrity monitoring and there is high difficulty to re-coordinate this network. Similarly, classical RTK surveying is limited in that it does not permit integrity monitoring and has a high dependency on a single reference station.

There is also the possibility of gross errors in establishing a reference station and potential productivity loss, security and communications issues.

The Networked RTK approach is the best mapping solution. This approach uses established communications, provides integrity monitoring, eliminates the dependency on single base reference station and eliminates the need for base equipment. The Jamaica GFIX GPS Geodetic Network was developed on this approach. It is a thirteen (13) Station Network with a single control center at the National Land Agency (NLA). It provides GPS users in Jamaica with accurate Differential GPS corrections anywhere in the island. This gives an active GPS Geodetic Reference Network for cost effective and accurate GPS mapping/ surveying nationwide.

GPS is largely used locally for land and engineering surveying, bauxite and mining operations and spatial data collection. The use of GPS is expected to grow in the areas of fleet management, specialized and large construction projects and within the utilities industry. The new network will allow users to achieve at best centimeter position accuracy in a matter of seconds anywhere on the island.