It’s a VoIP Future - Online Bonus Story  

By Jeff Erlichman

The Army is preparing for migration to VoIP by providing telephone switches with built-in VoIP capability and implementing VoIP data networks.

On the broad scale, the mission of the Project Manager, Network Service Center (PM NSC) is to provide backbone campus infrastructure and data networks at Army posts, camps and stations, worldwide.

“Over the last several years, we have been posturing the Army for migration to VoIP by providing telephone switches with built-in VoIP capability, and more recently, we have implemented VoIP data networks,” NSC’s Craig Powderly told 1105 Government Information Group Custom Media in a spring interview.

“We have also provided a limited number of VoIP telephone handsets. All of this VoIP-capable equipment is fully compliant with all DoD standards for interoperability and Information Assurance.”

Powderly said service is delivered by a combination of the telephone switches, with built-in VoIP gateway capability, and data networks designed to carry VoIP across the bases. However, because VoIP is not currently carried over the internet between Army bases, it must be converted to traditional Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) before leaving the base.

VoIP Success
The “gold standard” for commercial grade voice systems, including VoIP, for our Command and Control (C2) users is what we call the “5 nines” of availability – 99.999% availability said Powderly

“We achieve this high level of system availability by redundant power – battery/generator backup – which is a standard part of legacy telephone switch systems. However, some users who perform non-C2 missions, such as administrative users, don’t necessarily require the same level of availability.”

To solve that issue, NSC is working with DISA to adjust requirements to be commensurate with that required for non-C2 users. This can significantly reduce costs for VoIP implementation for these users.

Despite success, Powderly said the Army faces essentially the same challenges that the business community faces in implementing VoIP solutions.

Driven by what type of COTS equipment/technology has been available in the commercial market over recent years, the Army has implemented a significant amount of TDM technology, which it expects to leverage as an important part of Army voice modernizations for the near future explained Powderly.

The same stringent requirement for reliability in VoIP drives a different set of challenges where power backup needs to be more distributed, which drives costs. Training challenges are similar to private industry, where skill sets for voice and data must converge.

Working Together
The Army and PM NSC will be participating with other services and DoD over the next year in a pilot program for end-to-end VoIP across the DoD network said Powderly.

“This pilot program lays the path forward for VoIP and applies a high level of availability, not only at the base level, but also in the high speed backbone that connects U.S. military bases worldwide. The intent of the pilot program is also to allow the use of mixed-vendor solutions while maintaining full interoperability.”

When it comes to the future Powderly sees VoIP as a part of enterprise Unified Communications (UC), bringing everything over the Internet, including voice, data and video. To get the best ideas, PM NSC put out an RFI last spring on moving forward with UC.

“We are currently investigating a centrally-managed UC capability that can service multiple Army bases for non-C2 users,” explained Powderly. “This concept has the potential to significantly reduce the entrance costs for UC because less manpower will be required to maintain one centrally-managed network vs. multiple networks, and due to the lesser levels of availability required for non-C2 users.”

The conversion to UC for C2 users will be more gradual and will make use of the traditional TDM equipment until it is no longer cost effective or it does not support the mission. The future may bring the evolution of other technologies in the commercial sector and PM NSC will certainly consider them in its efforts to apply the best technologies and solutions to meet the mission Powderly said.