Application of COTS Communications Services for Command and Control of Military Forces
Abstract
This paper describes issues related to the use of commercial communication systems in support of military command and control, These systems' provide paging (messaging) and telephony services with global reach using small (personal), autonomously powered terminals. New commercial telephony and paging systems offer ready access to advanced communications technology for a range of benign and hostile forces including the military, government agencies, media organisations, emergency services, Insurgents and terrorists. The size, cost, coverage and ubiquity of all of these systems combined with the availability of tools targeting internet application development creates an interesting mix of threat and opportunity for military organisations. One of the key advantages offered by the group of new telecommunications networks is diversity. Diversity of supply may enable a future adversary to use up to five systems in order to provide a voice service. For example, a user could subscribe to voice services based on GSM, CDMA, Inmarsat, Iridium, Globaistar systems using only three terminals that could easily fit into a briefcase. These example systems would operate in five different frequency bands and all are highly independent of each other in terms of the supporting network. This paper is structured in the following way. Section two describes some high level attributes required of these commercial systems in order to operate in a military communication environment. Section three highlights the differences that would typically exist between the commercial and military communication markets and their associated procurement strategies. Section four provides some examples of COTS solutions for military applications, which include Command and Control Warfare (C2W), and the application of COTS for Australian Defence Force (ADF) communications.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADP010672
Entities
People
- Jeff Mccarthy
- Peter Kerr