A network planning process (NPP) for the military tactical environment

Advanced mobile and wireless commercial technologies and networks offer the opportunity to revolutionalize military tactical capability, enabling defense forces to be used to maximum effect. The challenge for defense organizations is to implement these technologies to improve operational capability. In this paper, a formal network planning process (NPP) is presented to meet this challenge. The planning structured process identifies the key organizational, environmental and technological factors that will impact the design of the future tactical communications network. This approach can be used to effectively guide the selection of the most appropriate mobile technologies, and the network architecture against which they may be applied