>>Wireless Phones To Be Made Secure, by Pentagon Standards
by Sandra I. Erwin
The lack of secure telephone communications between U.S. and allied military forces was an oft-heard complaint during the Persian Gulf War and subsequent operations involving multi-national coalitions.
Now, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is trying to get out the message that there is a relatively easy way to achieve secure voice communications among coalition partners. For about $4,000, U.S. government officials and selected military allies can purchase a wireless handset that meets National Security Agency encryption standards.
This capability ensued from the Defense Department’s $72 million investment in Iridium Satellite LLC, which operates a constellation of 66 communications satellites. That constellation was about to be rendered inoperative, after Iridium filed for bankruptcy in 1999. But a number of investors, including the Defense Department, bought the satellites at a bargain price, and Iridium was resurrected. The company re-launched its satellite-phone services earlier this year.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Pentagon is entitled to 20,000 handsets and gets a low-cost calling plan. U.S. government users get free unlimited air time between Iridium handsets and pay $40 per month for up to 500 minutes of air time when they are connected to terrestrial commercial phone lines.
So far, DISA, which manages the program, has signed up nearly 4,100 users, half of whom are from the State Department. DISA officials predict that the numbers will go way up, once the word gets out that this service is available. Beginning in July 2001, users can purchase “secure sleeves” for $2,270 each. The secure sleeve looks like a battery pack and is attached to the back of the Iridium 9505 handset, which costs $1,465. The 12-ounce handset is sleeker and lighter than the 16-ounce brick-shaped device that the company inherited from the former Iridium, which went out of business, because it could not sign up enough customers to buy a bulky $3,000 handset and pay $3 per minute of air time. Those old handsets now are being sold for less than $500.
A 9505 handset with the secure module and cable costs $3,998, said Army Col. Tim Fong, DISA’s program director. “All Defense Department users are required to buy the phone with the secure sleeve. The older phones were not securable,” he told reporters during a briefing in Leesburg, Va.
Allied nations interested in purchasing Iridium handsets with the encryption capability are NATO members, New Zealand and Australia, said Fong. Potential non-military U.S. government users, besides the State Department, are the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Coast Guard.
Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia “are very interested,” said Fong. The British and the Australians still have older handsets and want the new phones. “We have an agreement between the U.S. and those three countries that allows them to purchase the 9505 phones with a secure sleeve,” said Fong. Only the Joint Chiefs of Staff can approve foreign use of any of the Defense Department’s 20,000 Iridium slots, he said. “They have to make sure that the U.S. needs are met first.”
The State Department now is the biggest user of Iridium, said Fong. “They need secure communications that don’t have to go through another country’s public infrastructure.”
The Defense Department, not Iridium, funded the development of the secure sleeve, made by Motorola. So far, the company has shipped about 1,000 modules. The Type 1 encryption for the Iridium phones is compatible with the security standard called STU III, which the Pentagon mandates for desktop telephones.
DISA channels all calls made by government users of Iridium through a secure gateway, located in Hawaii. “We control user access,” said Fong. The goal is to prevent any calls from being directed through a foreign gateway. A call eventually can be routed to a commercial network, “but only after it’s gone through our gateway,” Fong said. As of April 2001, DISA had recorded about 30,000 calls made by Iridium government users.
Iridium handsets often are used in Bosnia and Kosovo to supplement terrestrial systems, said Fong. The Pentagon likes the service, he said, because it works anywhere in the world, even the poles. Iridium will not replace Inmarsat, Milstar, the Defense Satellite Communication Systems, other commercial satellites or terrestrial services, he said. It is “only a gap-filler for those areas where it’s hard to communicate,” because there is no infrastructure.
The calling plan makes Iridium price-competitive, compared to other services, said a U.S. Navy official speaking on background. Calls made from a ship at sea using Inmarsat, he said, cost $12 a minute.
It made sense for the Defense Department to invest $72 million in Iridium, over two years, said Fong, because it lowers the cost of the service for government users. Under the old Iridium, military commanders were reluctant to use the service, because the $3 per minute charges resulted in huge phone bills that drained resources from other priorities. With the current calling plan, commanders can budget for the expense and use the phone without worrying so much about the per-minute charges.
Non-U.S. subscribers who qualify for one of the Defense Department’s 20,000 handsets must pay a $150 per month access fee, plus the cost of the phone calls. They don’t get a flat rate plan. The phone calls are charged based on the commercial rate that someone would pay from wherever they are calling, to Hawaii, where the U.S. gateway is located.
Commercial users of Iridium have their calls routed through gateways in the United States (Arizona) and Italy.
In June, Iridium launched a data service, aimed at providing low data-rate (10 kilobits per second) Internet access and e-mail in remote areas of the world where there are no other means of connectivity. According to Mark Adams, Iridium’s chief technology officer, the company has received several inquiries about this service from the State Department and from several agencies within the Defense Department.
Data applications only require a handset and a computer, said Adams. A customized serial cable is used to connect a handset with the computer. He cautioned that Iridium “is not trying to compete with existing telephony infrastructure. ... It’s not a high-speed backbone service. We are targeting businesses that are in areas with no infrastructure.”—Sandra I. Erwin <<
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