Army News, news from Iraq, - Army Times

Army wireless hub could respond to Ike

If Hurricane Ike knocks out power in Texas, the Army National Guard could help emergency responders by bringing in a transportable, wireless, local area network called Combat Service Support Automated Information Systems Interface. Additionally, the National Guard could provide combat service support satellite communications through a system called a Very Small Aperture Terminal.

Used by active-duty Army logistics units in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, CAISI is a commercial, off-the-shelf wireless network manufactured by Ashburn, Va.-based Telos.

“These systems operate on generators. The units have power so they are completely stand-alone systems, so they can provide connectivity if areas have Internet service providers affected by a hurricane,” said Army Lt. Col. Clyde Richards, product manager for defensewide transmission systems, Fort Monmouth, N.J.

CAISI is used primarily for logistics networks that feed information via satellite to a data warehouse with huge servers. Soldiers using the network “can take the computer off their desk and take their computer device to the field. It is a portable configuration. It has a hub and security device associated with it for encryption,” Richards said. “The hub is normally located at the unit level in company headquarters in various supply points” or in medical vehicles.

VSATs transmit IP data packets from CAISI into the Army’s Internet protocol, called the Non-Classified Internet Protocol Router Network.

The Army is buying 20,000 more CAISI systems to add to the 9,100 already in service. In addition, the Army plans to buy 1,000 more VSAT systems.

In January, the Army ordered an upgraded version called CAISI 2.0 that costs less, adds Ethernet ports to help more people to connect at the access point, transmits encrypted data more than twice as fast, and allows radio devices to transmit on three frequency bands.

In January, the Army awarded Telos $45 million in contracts to deliver up to 15,037 CAISI 2.0s over three years.

“CAISI 2.0 reduces the price for a CAISI Bridge Module [hub which connects to a satellite] from $6,000 to $4,500 and will realize cost avoidance of about $15 million over the next two years,” said Army public affairs officer Steve Larson.

The Army’s top acquisition executive said disaster relief can resemble combat.

“We need to acknowledge and appreciate that over the last five or six years of war, the acquisition community has learned to be expeditionary, whether in a theater of war or in a domestic natural disaster that, for all intents and purposes, creates the same challenges of war,” said Dean Popps, the Army acquisition executive and principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology.