Advanced commercial-off-the-shelf technology for joint task force DISN deployed multimedia communications (JDDMC)

The current tactical communications requirement, in terms of increased bandwidth and more communications functionality, is forcing the tactical communications community to search for near-term technological improvements. These technology improvements, using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) and/or government-off-the-shelf products, is part of a long term Department of Defense cost reduction strategy for modernizing currently fielded tactical systems. The goal is to acquire commercially based C4I systems that can be expeditiously deployed to warfighting elements. This broad strategy allows DOD services and agencies to deploy current, standards based, commercial technologies with a minimum of up-front development effort and associated costs. During JWID, high speed digital services were extended beyond the traditional DISN boundary in support of forward deployed JTF using the state-of-the-art commercial switching equipment. The COTS products used in this demonstration served as a proof of concept for using commercial technologies for tactical multimedia applications. The network consisted of four mobile switching nodes forming a meshed backbone linking demonstration sites at MacDill AFB, Ft. Bragg, Ft. Gordon, and Shaw AFB. The enabling technologies are ATM cell switching, ISDN telephony, and transparent ATM support for legacy IP router networks. ATM switches interfaced with three types of ISDN PABXs. The PABXs in turn interoperated with a wide range of voice terminals (analog, tactical, digital, ISDN, STU-III), computer terminals, and ISDN desktop products