WASHINGTON, D.C. – During these times of increased use of commercial satellite equipment and services by the U.S. military, companies looking to do business with the Department of Defense (DoD) need to set up baseline standards for all branches of the armed services.
“We need to establish a baseline understanding that we are going to have assured access to commercial satellite communications,” said Lt. Col. Dean Olson, U.S. Army chief of satcom operations branch, operations directorate, for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). “One problem with commercial [satellite operators] is this unwieldy gaggle of entities that we have do deal with at the various satellite companies.”
In remarks here last week at SATELLITE 2003, Olson emphasized that streamlining procedures would act as a catalyst for increasing military use of commercial satellite communications. He pointed out that currently the DoD’s total annual expenditure for commercial satellite communications is roughly $400 million. With the possible war in Iraq looming ever larger and tensions increasing on the Korean peninsula, that amount is expected to go much higher.
Echoing Olson’s remarks was Michelle Bailey, U.S. Navy program manager, PMW 176, for SPAWAR. She emphasized that there are a number of needs that the Navy wants fulfilled by the commercial sector in order to make the military-commercial intersect easier. Those items include: reliability and maintainability of end-user equipment; hardware that is easy to use by troops both here and abroad; single capacity arrangements whereby the military is enabled to lease spares and excess capacity quickly; commercial spectrum support on issues nationally and internationally; and transition to new technologies as new innovations and efficiencies are offered by the commercial sector.
Crucial Cooperation
Indeed, Olson said one example of such cooperation is the more than 11,000 Inmarsat mobile satellite services handsets used by the U.S. military in the field. All of the satellite time for those L-band handsets is leased through Inmarsat.
Olson added that both the military establishment as well as commercial satellite communications operators can benefit from a firmer partnership in the future as it relates to infrastructure changes and service upgrades.
Finally, Capt. Brad Leininger, U.S. Navy director of the DoD teleport program, said that worldwide teleport siting and upgrading currently is underway and will be complete by mid-2004. These upgrades, ordered by the DoD and Congress last year following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., will enable members of the military to access both military and commercial in-orbit satellites anywhere on earth with redundant capacity and increased speed.
Leininger said the secretary of defense currently is promoting an acquisition policy environment that fosters efficiency, flexibility, creativity and innovation when approaching the bidding, contracting and use of commercial satellite services. –Dave Bross
