Program executive office for enterprise information systems news release : Coalition Military Network supports multinational operations against insurgents

Defense AT&L, May-June, 2005 by Stephen Larsen

Just in time to support coalition operations to clear insurgents out of Fallujah and other hotbeds, the U.S. Army completed and fielded the Coalition Military Network, a new Internet Protocol-based, network-centric satellite communications system. The CMN provides bandwidth-on-demand services, with high-quality voice capabilities and secure broadband data communications for the coalition's multi-national division, which includes British, Filipino, Korean, Polish, Ukrainian, and U.S. forces.

Implementation of the CMN is part of the Kuwait-Iraq C4 Commercialization (KICC) program, through which the Army is providing enduring communications infrastructure for U.S. and coalition forces. According to Lt. Col. Joseph Schafer, the Army's project manager for the KICC program, the CMN extends the global information grid to the coalition's remote sites in Iraq. "Our vision is to strike a balance between the need to deliberately build out the GIG at the major base camps and to quickly extend the GIG to more temporary locations," he explains.

The network gives coalition users at remote sites access to the same quality of communications as at larger, more established locations; as an example, CMN gives the sites data and FAX capability where they didn't exist before. The CMN reduces satellite usage by dynamically expanding and contracting bandwidth based on the user's instantaneous needs, using bandwidth-on-demand technologies, which could reduce satellite leasing requirements by up to 60 percent.

For voice communications, the CMN employs a full-mesh topology. Each node in the network can talk directly with every other node going through the satellite, but without having to go through the hub. Using only a single satellite hop reduces satellite delay by 50 percent, meaning significant improvements in voice quality and secure call reliability for coalition users.

Ron Mikeworth, a project coordinator for the CMN effort, says that installation team members (including technicians from the prime CMN contractor, Lockheed Martin, and subcontractors DataPath and ViaSat) faced dangers as they traveled by truck in convoys through hostile territory to complete installations at remote sites. "Without the assistance of the soldiers who helped us transport the equipment to sites, our work in Iraq would have been extremely more difficult," he says. Mikeworth thanks the 711th Signal Battalion, Alabama National Guard, specifically Lt. Matt Kelly; the 111th Signal Battalion, South Carolina National Guard, specifically Lt. Monica McGrath and Sgt. Robin Goode; and the 3rd Signal Brigade, specifically Capt. Clair Crowe-Chaze.

"Combat operations continue, insurgency has driven up costs, and troop strength has increased rather than decreased," notes Schafer. "But despite it all, we're leveraging IP-based technology to field communications that meet the requirements of the transformational communications architecture, and we're doing it in a war zone. The CMN represents a tremendous capability for GIG extension in the area of responsibility."

For more information, contact the Public Affairs Officer for PM DCATS at stephen.larsen@us.army.mil.