The war in Iraq is the most digitally intensive conflict ever, with
virtually every tank, plane, Humvee and - in many cases - bombs and
missiles linked by satellite to sometimes distant combat control rooms.
The flood of data that orchestrates this gritty fight swamps amounts seen
even just a year ago in Afghanistan, by far outstripping the relay capacity
of Defence Department satellites.
To slake its growing thirst for bandwidth, the Pentagon has snapped up the
services of commercial satellite companies. And its commanders are still
not satisfied.
"When you are in combat, you want more of everything: You want more
bullets, you want more beans, you want more bits," said Tim Bonds, an
analyst at the Rand Corp.
More bandwidth means the ability to put more surveillance planes in the air
to beam live video to the dispatchers of bombs and missiles. It also means
uncongested conduits for encrypted conversations with battlefield units.
"We're very reliant on it," said army Captain John Morgan with the 22nd
Mobile Public Affairs Attachment at Camp Doha, Kuwait. "What the capacity
does is allow us to respond much more quickly to the situation on the
ground, whether it's a downed aircraft or assessing what effect our ground
operations are having."
When the army's 4th Infantry Division hits the ground - the unit was en
route to the Persian Gulf today - bandwidth demand will jump further. It is
the army's most technologically advanced division, with wireless
connections between tanks and other ground vehicles that connect via
satellite with commanders far to the rear.
The military by necessity must prioritise the communications it relays by
satellite. What suffers? US commanders refused to discuss that.
"We don't want to tell the world what our capabilities and limitations are
because that would help the enemy," Morgan said.
From the first Gulf War a dozen years ago, the Pentagon's demand for
bandwidth has increased roughly tenfold, Air Force Space Command spokesman
Michael Kucharek said.
Military satellites carry a smaller and smaller percentage of its
communications traffic. Commercial providers ferry the bulk.
During the 1991 conflict, Pentagon and NATO satellites carried an estimated
85 per cent of military communications. Not even a decade later, during the
Kosovo crisis, the percentages flip-flopped, Bonds said.
That's about what it remains today.
The situation owes in part to the Pentagon's increased "comfort" in relying
on commercial providers to carry encrypted military data, Bonds said. Among
them are PanAmSat Corp, Intelsat Ltd and Inmarsat Ltd. And Paris-based
Eutelsat SA recently won a Pentagon contract.
The military's increased use of commercial satellites comes at a time of
significant excess capacity.
In recent years, the industry had scrambled to beef up its satellite fleet
to accommodate projected growth in commercial need for bandwidth. That need
largely failed to materialise after the dot-com crash.
The military has since taken up much of the slack: Since the September 11,
2001 attacks, the US government has become the largest customer in the
commercial satellite market, said Tom Eaton, executive vice president of
sales and marketing for PanAmSat.
The Pentagon's use of commercial satellites will probably continue:
Projections call for a five- or six-fold jump in military communications by
2010, Bonds said.
Help will also come from advanced technology. But for now, the Pentagon is
much like that PC user who craves a faster Internet connection to speed
surfing and downloads.
http://theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/28/1048653840990.html
