Perceived issues associated with military use of satellite based personal communications systems

As charged by Congress and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) created the Commercial Satellite Communications Initiatives (CSCI) program. The CSCI program's purpose is to assess the use of available and planned commercial communications satellites to fulfill, in a cost-effective manner, certain military communications that would be otherwise provided by Government satellite systems. This paper describes planned commercial satellite based personal communications systems (PCS) capable of providing voice, data and other services anywhere in the world to mobile users equipped with lightweight, handheld transceivers. The paper then provides an overview of issues associated with military use of satellite PCS services.