Will GMES services be fully "free-of-charge" for users? Who will pay for the GMES Services?
GMES services whose implementation and operation are supported by public funding at the European level will fall into the regime defined by the GMES governance. Considered as "public goods", a full and open access to these services will be organised. Data from the Sentinels will be free of charge to users.
Downstream services correspond to those services that will be implemented outside the scope of the GMES governance and without EU public funding. They will be developed by public or private operators with the objective to meet specific needs (e.g. specific to a group of user, location-specific, etc.).
Downstream services will provide their users with added-value by combining the information provided by the GMES services with additional data (e.g. socio-economic data). Depending on the business model adopted by each service provider, these downstream services could be either free for the final user (e.g. funding through advertising) or associated to a fee (e.g. pay-per-use, recurrent fee, etc.).