Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : ViaSat -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Valueman who wrote (1078)	3/8/2002 8:50:11 AM
From: Valueman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1112

DOD will continue contracting with satellite operators for capacity Due to rising military demand for satellite communications capability, the Department of Defense will continue contracting with private satellite operators for most of the decade, according to several military officials. "At least historically, there is a continuous known gap between total requirements and the total capabilities we plan to bring into the system and put on orbit for military SATCOM [satellite communications]," Lt. Col. Pat Rayemann, Army chief of space operations for the Defense Information Systems Agency, said March 7 at the Satellite 2002 conference in Washington. Since Operation Desert Storm, the military's bandwidth requirement to transmit intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance information, as well as imagery, video, video teleconferencing, graphics and collaborative planning has increased 663 percent, according Col. Barry Patterson, chief of the Air Force's satellite communications division in the U.S. Space Command. More recently, the U.S. Central Command's required capacity to send and receive information increased dramatically. Before Sept. 11, USCENTCOM needed only enough capacity to send and receive about 100 megabits of information per second, Rayemann said. Today, USCENTCOM requires capacity for about 400 megabits of information per second. That is expected to increase to about 500 megabits per second in the near term, he said. The use of Iridium handsets and satellite services also has increased dramatically since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Patterson added. Rayemann said the services have not done a good job of communicating their requirements to the satellite and telecommunications industries. DOD to build ground stations "We could do a better job of letting you [industry] know what our requirements are and also do a more rational job of presenting those requirements," he said. To increase its capacity to send information to forward-deployed forces, the DOD plans to build six additional multispectrum teleport ground stations throughout the world, Rayemann said. The existing teleports - one at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany and the other near Norfolk, Va. - are insufficient to relay information to forces on the ground, so DOD is leasing service from commercial teleport facilities, he said. "There's nothing wrong with that, and I don't want to be judged as saying the DOD has any dissatisfaction" with this approach, he said, but the DOD needs to develop an in-house capability to handle the potential increase in capacity demand. Navy Capt. Brad Leininger of the Defense Information Systems Agency, the program manager of the DOD teleports program, said the teleports will be capable of using Ka-band, Ku-band, C-band as well as other frequencies. Three of the teleports will be located at Army bases: Camp Buckner in Okinawa, Japan; Camp Roberts in California; and Landstuhl in Germany. Three of the teleports will be located at Navy facilities: Wahiawa in Hawaii; Lago Patria near Naples, Italy; and the existing Northwest facility at Norfolk, Va. The Air Force will maintain its existing facility at Ramstein Air Force Base while an additional back-up facility will be built in Bahrain, he said. The Defense Information Systems Agency is scheduled to begin receiving funds April 15 for production, he added. "DOD relies on commercial SATCOM today. We're going to continue to rely on it, I believe, throughout this decade. So I think there will be a partnership with your industry for some time to come," Rayemann said. - Nick Jonson (nick_jonson@AviationNow.com) Copyright 2002 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.