Advanced commercial-off-the-shelf tactical multimedia switching technology prototyping and integration for the Joint Task Force (JTF) during JWID'95

The tactical communications infrastructure provides inadequate service to many of its users. A number of programs are in progress to upgrade the infrastructure. The COTS Tactical Multimedia Switching Technology prototyping and integration Demonstration is based upon a new modernization concept articulated in the Joint Task Force Tactical Communications Architecture (JIEO report 8125 March 1995). This demonstration was conducted during the Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration-1995 (JWID'95). The purpose of this effort was to validate and verify the concepts of the architecture. These concepts envision upgrades to the tactical communications infrastructure using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) or government-off-the-shelf standards based equipment. The result is a long term Department of Defense cost reduction strategy. The objective is to have a capability to deploy expediously the most current commercial capabilities to the warfighter. These capabilities must be based on COTS products and open/civil standards. This strategy eliminates much of the lengthy research and development cycle and provides the ability to field technologically current capabilities quickly within the deployed tactical force with little or no developmental cost. Distributed multimedia applications are becoming more and more demanding in terms of bandwidth and communications functionality. This paper considers the challenges and difficulties, a service provider will face when extending these services to the warfighter and describes the COTS Tactical Multimedia Switching Demonstration.