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by Sgt. 1st Class Raymond Piper
1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division
CAMP RAMADI, Iraq- Technology has changed since Alexander Graham Bell made the first phone call. Now a telephone call can be placed to anywhere in the world with a traditional phone line, over the Internet or by satellite. The Army keeps up with the changing technology and improves communications on the battlefield through the Joint Network Node.
The JNN, less than four-years old, provides Internet and telephone capability to the joint security stations and combat outposts throughout Ramadi, Iraq, through the command post nodes. The relatively new asset is managed and ran by the Soldiers of Company B, 1-3 Brigade Troops Battalion.
"We bring them all in together. The CPNs are basically a smaller version of us (the JNN) with less routing capability. That's mainly what we do. We make sure they have a connection to the FOB (Forward Operating Base) and outside," said Sgt. Johnathan Bradley, a satellite system maintainer with Co. B.
The magic of communication is accomplished through a satellite and a Humvee with the cargo area packed full of telephone switches, routers and computers to control the flow of information. A second Humvee is used to pull a generator to power the system.
As Pfc. Andy Del Valle, a network switching systems operator, explains each component, he sounds like a civilian technician, referring to the Soldiers who connect through the system as subscribers. His knowledge is evident as he points and explains what it does in relation to its role, and how it creates the lines of communication.
His knowledge comes from the day-to-operation of the system, but the foundation was laid during his training at Fort Gordon, Ga.
His original military occupation specialty was phased out when he arrived for training, and he was told he would be reclassifying to 25N network switching systems operator.
Del Valle said, "When I was told about it, I said that sounded exactly like what I wanted to do ... and was trained exactly on the system."
Bradley, who has been part of the 3rd Infantry Division since he joined the Army four years ago, learned the system after coming to Fort Stewart.
"I worked with MSC (Multiple Subscriber Unit) for two weeks when I got to my unit, then I jumped straight to this stuff," Bradley said.
The 3rd Inf. Div. was the first to field the JNN as they prepared to return to Iraq in 2004 for Operation Iraqi Freedom 3. With the JNN proven to work, it replaced the Multiple Subscriber Unit as the bandwidth demands of the Army far exceeded the older systems.
"There is always going to be more benefits with the newer stuff," Bradley said. "You get more subscribers out of it, and it is more reliable. The system is a lot more user friendly for the customers."
The system uses commercial hardware, such as the satellite terminals and routers by DataPath, and voice-over-IP systems from Cisco. By using off-the-shelf technology, the systems are available at the tenth of the cost.
"Everything is commercial off the shelf so some of the things have never been tried, but everything we have tried has pretty much worked," Bradley said.
The routers and modems use fiber optic cables to facilitate the movement of data. The different cables used to transmit data are like pipes moving water. Flowing information through a fiber optic and Ethernet cable is the difference between a sewer line and a PVC pipe.
"With fiber, you can push anything through it. Like a gigabit a second (of information). No transmission media that we have so far will go over the limit that fiber optics has," Bradley said.
The smaller system reduces the need for large numbers of communication specialists to operate and maintain the equipment and was key to the restructuring of signal companies.
"Before you would have teams manning multiple pieces of equipment, now there are less people because the system requires less. Now we do it all out of one system," Bradley said. "We went from needing 150 people to needing 50 people to maintain the same level of signal support."
The Army didn't set aside the bulky equipment of the past, so the JNN was designed to work with the older equipment by converting the analog signal to a digital signal.
"If I wanted to use a satellite from an MSC or bring it into the network, I could," Bradley said. "What this does is turn a signal company into a signal battalion with the same capabilities."
As technology advances, what started as a simple phone call links Soldiers across the battlefield and provides more communication in a smaller package.
| Date Taken: | 11.23.2007 |
| Date Posted: | 11.26.2007 18:07 |
| Story ID: | 14162 |
| Location: | RAMADI, IQ |
| Web Views: | 140 |
| Downloads: | 68 |
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