Plugging In From the Field

n the 1990-1991 Desert Storm operation, a typical U.S. Marine carried into combat 4 pounds of paper, besides all his other gear. What's worse, says Maj. James Cummiskey, that Marine didn't have the most important information of all-an up-to-the-minute map showing his position in relation to friends and foes.

Cummiskey, who's assigned to the Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity (MCTSSA) at Camp Pendleton, Calif., is one of many military officers trying to improve the odds for U.S. troops by supplying them with better combat information systems. He believes the combat troops should be carrying portable computers running an off-the-shelf operating system, Microsoft Windows CE. It's a compact operating system designed to run small portable and wireless computers, including the Automobile PCs coming on the market in April.

In advocating commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) computers for the battlefield, Cummiskey is bucking an entrenched establishment that has spent billions to develop and deploy computers and communications systems especially designed for battlefield conditions. For example, military specifications call for "ruggedized" computers that, unlike standard portables, withstand being jolted and dropped. Cummiskey's response: It should be easy to develop inexpensive protective cases for sub-notebook computers. And if the computer breaks, throw it away and grab a new one. At probably less than $1,000 apiece, you can afford to do that.

The big advantage, as he sees it, is avoidance of the lengthy procurement, design, development and deployment cycle that characterizes acquisition of new military systems. "We can't afford any longer to develop military-centric systems," Cummiskey says. "Our [development] programs are 10 or 15 years long." By using familiar ingredients such as the Windows computer screen, the Java programming language and PC hardware, he says, "we can leverage off all the experience that our engineers have."

Off-the-shelf handheld PCs present a familiar face to Microsoft Windows users. Today's battlefield computers generally run the Unix operating system, so soldiers who use Windows PCs on base have to adapt to a different kind of system on the battlefield. In addition, thanks to off-the-shelf interfaces with global positioning satellites, a handheld PC can readily show the user's position on the battlefield. The military computers can't do this.

During an exercise called Kernel Blitz last year, MCTSSA equipped platoon commanders and squad leaders with commercial handheld PCs and prototype software for messaging and what the military calls "situational awareness." Operations orders were formatted for the World Wide Web and distributed over a battalion intranet, or internal network resembling the Internet. The results, Cummiskey says, were promising. He concedes that there will be some systems failures, but says the COTS products held up well in field conditions. "These systems are literally going to save people's lives," he insists.

The one major design issue that remains, he says, is communication with a base station. Cummiskey ticks off the possibilities: wireless local networks, combat radio systems with a channel devoted to data messaging, cellular modems, low-earth-orbit satellites, even paging systems.

The cellular modems may be the most promising because encryption technology already is available. Secure e-mail and Web-style communications on the battlefield would give troops a huge edge, Cummiskey says.

Increasing Demand

Although their requirements are somewhat different, information technology managers in many civilian agencies are struggling with the same kinds of issues Cummiskey is tackling. More and more employees are in the field, on the road or working from home, and they need to keep up with the latest battle orders and directives. The collection of technologies that lets them plug in often wears the label "remote access."

There was a time when employees on the road could simply telephone the office for the latest news and instructions, but the secretaries and assistants who used to take those calls are disappearing as the government downsizes. "As the number of people goes down, the increase in demand for remote access rises," says Richard Bowers, government sales manager for Digi International Inc. of Minnetonka, Minn.

Bowers' company sells remote access boards for PC servers running Microsoft Windows NT, the operating system that is supplanting Unix in many federal agencies. Authorized users with PCs and modems can dial into the server, and their distant PCs can do almost anything they could do inside the office. However, communications over today's modems are noticeably slower than direct links to an office network.

Digi's most popular board, which sells for $775 on General Services Administration contract, is selling well, often in quantities of one or two to holders of government IMPAC charge cards. But it can accommodate a maximum of eight simultaneous users. Offices with many remote users may need to have one or more servers dedicated solely to remote access.

Sometimes known as modem pools, such servers are available from major computer, switch and network manufacturers, as well as integrators that assemble them as needed. Dedicated servers usually have more features and options, such as built-in diagnostics and network management tools. Priced from around $20,000 to $75,000, they can carry dozens or hundreds of calls at a time.

However, if you've ever tried to install a modem in a PC and configure it, you know how tricky it can be to set up and operate remote-access servers. They operate, of course, at the intersection of telephone and computer technology, always a place of discomfort. A separate phone line is needed for each remote access "port" on the server. "Remote access is usually a difficult experience," says Steve Curtin, marketing manager for Ariel Corp. of Cranbury, N.J. Ariel's Rascal remote-access boards for NT servers are designed for easy installation and use.

Agencies often find that the day they get their remote-access server set up, it's time to reconfigure it. Unidentified demand, advancing technology and changing needs within the agency are typical causes. Then there are the users needing help. For many network managers, remote access occupies too much of their attention and money.

Outsourcing Is an Option

Phone companies are standing by with remedies for these headaches. The major long-distance carriers and many local phone companies offer remote-access services in which they supply links between the agency's local area network (LAN) and the remote user.

In AT&T Corp.'s FTS 2000 remote access service, called Off-Site Access to Servers and Intranet Solution (OASIS), the agency pays for a high-speed data connection between its LAN server and the phone system, and the agency supplies its employees or clients with modem-equipped PCs and software. In more than 200 cities, the remote users can call a local phone number to tie into OASIS; elsewhere they call a toll-free 800 number.

Besides eliminating hassles, AT&T's Bill Daniels says, OASIS offers more security than the typical remote access service operated in house. As many as five different identity checks or passwords can be required during each log-in to the agency's network.

Two Agriculture Department agencies-the Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service-are beginning to use OASIS to give notebook computer-equipped and other field employees a way to deliver their reports to the agencies. In addition, USDA's Lois Loser says, OASIS users in the field can check databases and do World Wide Web research via the system.

Agriculture officials believe the cost of using OASIS will be lower than the alternatives would be and the service will be more reliable, she says. APHIS' Mimi Fowler says hundreds of her agency's employees work in one- or two-person offices where it is not cost-effective to install dedicated data lines to link them with headquarters or regional offices.

An alternative solution is now becoming readily available in much of the nation. Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) service, offered by local phone companies, gives telephone customers the use of two lines for less than twice the price of one. Unlike conventional telephone service, ISDN is all-digital communication, which generally is of higher quality and faster. One reason is that data going through the network need not be converted from an analog signal to a digital one and back again, as often happens with conventional phones.

Peter Geier, a marketing manager for Eicon Technology Corp. of Montreal, Quebec, says ISDN installations doubled last year, and one reason is the growth in telecommuting on the part of federal and private-sector employees. In home offices, he says, people are replacing their fax and phone lines with one ISDN line. Eicon's new Diva ISDN modem lets a remote user receive e-mail messages, send a fax and talk on the telephone simultaneously.

More Ways to Connect

On the horizon are other ways to connect agencies and their computer users in the field. The latest buzz in the networking industry is something called Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology, which provides heavy-duty data connections without running new wires into every customer's home. But competing versions of DSL are in play, and the service is too immature for agencies to do much more than test it.

Another 1998 buzzword is "virtual private networks." This technology relies on the Internet rather than the telephone network as the backbone of an agency's remote-access network. Remote users dial up an Internet access provider, instead of a telephone office or agency switch. These networks generally cost less than comparable services that ride on the telephone network, and they are likely to be more flexible and expandable.

The Naval Undersea Warfare Center is encouraging its traveling staff to stay in touch while they are on the road by accessing the center's HQ Web remotely.

Wireless in the Next Century

What about wireless access, the kind that Marine Corps Maj. Cummiskey yearns for? For users who aren't at war, wireless data services are coming, but they are not here yet, most experts agree. Cellular and pager services don't have enough capacity to transmit more than small files, such as short messages, at a reasonable speed.

More robust services are available in a few large metropolitan areas, but not nationwide. The cost of wireless data service is much higher than telephone or Internet service, making it difficult to justify on a large scale. And security remains an issue.

Yet the demand clearly is there, as Microsoft's recent announcement of the Automobile PC suggests. Experts expect new product and service announcements almost daily. Now that cellular phones and notebook computers have become commonplace, users are demanding a marriage of the two.