Coalition multinational network ready in time to support operations vs. insurgents

BAGHDAD -- 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 U.S., British, Polish, Ukrainian, Korean and Filipino forces.

Implementation of the CMN is part of the Kuwait Iraq C4 Commercialization program, through which the Army is providing enduring communications infrastructure for U.S. and Coalition forces.

According to LTC Joseph Schafer, the Army's project manager for the KICC program, the CMN provides remote coalition bases in Iraq services including secure and non-secure voice, Nonsecure Internet Protocol Router Network and the Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System, a coalition secret data network.

"The CMN extends the Global Information Grid to the coalition's remote sites in Iraq," said Schafer. "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."

John Hildreth, KICC's project leader for the CMN project, said the network gives coalition users at remote sites access to the same quality of communications as at larger, more established locations.

"The CMN allows for command and control communications between on the ground forces and the headquarters," said Hildreth, "and gives the sites a data and FAX capability where they didn't exist before."

TDMA/DAMA provide bandwidth on demand for warfighters

Ron Mikeworth, a project coordinator for the CMN effort, said the CMN reduces satellite usage by dynamically expanding and contracting bandwidth, based on the user's instantaneous needs, using bandwidth-on-demand technologies such as multi-frequency Time Division Multiple Access/Demand Assigned Multiple Access.

"This allows the system to expand and reduce the bandwidth used, base on actual, instantaneous, requirements, rather than paying for the wider bandwidth all the time when users only need it part of the time," said Mikeworth - which could reduce satellite leasing requirements by up to 60 percent. "The only way to determine exact savings would be to do extensive traffic studies," said Mikeworth.

At the hub for the CMN in Baghdad, the Army can keep its fingers on the pulse of the entire CMN, said Jason Blanke, a contractor for DataPath, who helps to keep the hub up-and-running. "We can monitor, maintain, troubleshoot and turn off-and-on the 20 remote terminals in the network," said Blanke.

For voice communications, Mikeworth said the CMN employs a full-mesh topology. "Think of the network as a wheel," he said, "with chords across the wheel connected to every other node. Each node in the CMN network can talk directly with every other node going through the satellite, but without having to go through the hub."

Blanke pointed out that the CMN's voice network uses only a single satellite hop, reducing satellite delay by 50 percent. "This means significant improvements in voice quality and secure call reliability for Coalition users," said Blanke.

Mikeworth said the CMN provides hub-spoke Local Area Network to Wide Area Network access. "For data, all the nodes in the CMN are connected to the hub, like spokes in a wheel, through the satellite," said Mikeworth. "This allows every node in the CMN that may be associated with a LAN to connect to another LAN outside the network through the hub and its connections in the WAN."

Because they used Very Small Aperture Terminals for the 20 remote nodes, said Hildreth, they were able to achieve economies.

"This means the user doesn't physically need as large a system for the same capabilities as would be required for a dedicated amount of bandwidth," said Hildreth. "This allows the system to be moved in a much quicker and less costly manner than larger, dedicated bandwidth systems with the same capability. CMN systems, as configured, are not mobile; however, they can be deinstalled and moved to a new location and re-installed relatively easily."

But when you're in Iraq, the words "relatively easily" are ... well, relative. Ralph Meacham, the KICC program's Deputy for Advanced Planning, pointed out that the installation team often slept in the same containers in which equipment was shipped.

"The containers served as a combination shipping trailer, communications and operational trailer and interim crew quarters facility," said Meacham. "We found that at about half our sites the containers ended up being the temporary sleeping quarters for the contract operators until their housing became available."

Building the GIG in a war zone

Mikeworth told how the installation team members--including technician from the prime CMN contractor, Lockheed-Martin, and sub contractors DataPath and ViaSat --faced dangers as they traveled by truck in convoys through hostile territory to complete installations at remote sites.

"One time, we were delayed because a bridge we were going to cross had been blown up," said Mikeworth. "The team ended up being delayed for two more days until it was 'safe' to convoy."

To get the equipment to another site, Mikeworth said a 10-ton bucket truck was required to lift the antenna onto a roof top, so the large bucket truck became a part of the convoy, along with up-armored Humvee gunships.

"Without the assistance of the Soldiers who helped us transport the equipment to sites, our work in Iraq would have been extremely more difficult," said Mikeworth. He thanked 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 CPT Clair Crowe-Chaze.

"It was really amazing watching a large bucket truck traveling at convoy speed (about 70-to-80 kilometers per hour) and pulling the required maneuvers as it went under the overpasses in the Red Zone of Baghdad," said Mikeworth.

It is these dangers and challenges, said Schafer, that set the work of the KICC program apart from other project management efforts.

"Combat operations continue, insurgency has driven up costs and troop strength has increased rather than decreased," noted Schafer. "But despite it all, we're leveraging IP-based technology--we're fielding comms that meets 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 AOR (Area of Responsibility)."

Mr. Larsen is a public affairs officer with Program Executive Office, Enterprise Information Systems at Fort Monmouth, N.J.

COPYRIGHT 2005 U.S. Army Signal Center
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group