What are Limitations of ECDIS?

3) The Problem of Recurring Costs 

Why do we have to pay for the data at all, given that the organisations collecting the data are government bodies and not private companies? The reason is that the cost of Hydrographic survey is tremendous, and that HOs, typically retrieve only 15-20 per cent of the cost.  

The cost of ENC production for HOs is one of the main stumbling block a sort of  “hump” in the road to global ENC coverage. HOs need funding to get over this hump but  hydrography is not interesting to a politician. The common citizens do not know the importance of shipping,” and therefore politicians aren’t enthused about allocating funding to the maritime sector. 

ARCS British ARCS charts are sold on an annual basis. Each chart costs about USD 25. A ship that typically runs a global run will need to have hundreds of charts, which if multiplied by $ 25 each year is a huge annual recurring expense.  

Given that a paper chart license requires a one off fee with free updates by subscription, while a digital chart also requires a fee for the chart and for the updates and to be renewed every year.

4) Being electronic equipments, if power supply fails ECDIS is useless.

5) Failure of GPS and Gyro Compass will make ECDIS useless.

6) No software for anti-viruses.