Meshed Boost for Korean Comms
When warfighters of the U.S. Forces Korea, 8th U.S. Army and
Republic of Korea transport C4I information throughout the Korean peninsula,
it rides over a state-of-the-art meshed communications architecture.
By Stephen Larsen
When warfighters of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), 8th U.S. Army and Republic of Korea transport C4I information throughout the Korean peninsula, it rides over a state-of-the-art meshed communications architecture, thanks to a decades-long partnership between the Regional Chief Information Office-Korea (RCIO-K) and the Product Manager, Defense Wide Transmission Systems (PM DWTS).
PM DWTS—part of the Army’s Program Executive Office, Enterprise Information Systems’ (PEO EIS) Project Manager, Defense Communications and Army Transmission Systems (PM DCATS)—is implementing this meshed transmission architecture under three comprehensive and complementary programs: the Korea Optical Fiber Backbone Replacement (KOBR), Korea Optical Transmission Network (KOTNet) and Digital Microwave Upgrade (DMU)
According to Dan Baker of the RCIO-K, these programs together provide robust communications for USFK communicators for their combatant commander sensor information and command and control for the component services, while ensuring net-centric advantages throughout the operational area of USFK.“The whole intent is to provide a meshed communications infrastructure that is survivable and redundant and provides the highest quality of service,” said Baker.
KOBR, KOTNet and DMU represent a “model architecture” and a move away from outdated, traditional wide-area transmission systems that have previously been implemented, said Lieutenant Colonel Clyde Richards of PM DWTS.
“KOBR, KOTNet, and DMU are initiatives to leverage state-of-the-art technologies that have resulted in better, faster and cheaper C4I transmission solutions for the Global information Grid infrastructure in Korea,” said Richards.
The Army’s original fiber-optic backbone was installed in the early 1980s, and using the technology of the day, was designed to support a single optical channel. By 2002, Baker explained, the combination of increased demand for higher bandwidths and deterioration of the fiber led to initiation of the KOBR program to replace 460 miles of the original fiber-optic backbone and to build it out for another 800 miles to ensure higher bandwidths, improved quality of service and survivability for joint communicators at Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine installations across the peninsula.
Under the KOBR program, PM DWTS is replacing aging 12-strand, single mode fiber-optic cable with 24-strand, Corning LEAF (Large Effective Area Fiber) fiber-optic cable. “This doubles the available fiber capacity,” said Gary McIlwain, PM DWTS project leader. “Because we’re optically multiplexing, we can achieve much higher bandwidth with less signal loss.”
PM DWTS is implementing the KOBR program in five phases. KOBR phases one through three, which replaced the original fiber-optic cable system, started in 2002 and were completed last fall. KOBR phases four and five, to build out the backbone to other locations on the Korean peninsula, started in 2007 and are scheduled to be completed in 2012.
Infrastructure Upgrades
The Army’s original optical transmission system, also installed in the 1980s, was designed employing then-current time division multiplexing access (TDMA) technology, in what was, by today’s standards, a low-bandwidth architecture. By 2004, increased demand for higher bandwidths and nearly obsolete equipment led to initiation of the KOTNet program.
Under the KOTNet program, PM DWTS is upgrading the existing transmission infrastructure with synchronous optical network (SONET) equipment, which upgrades transport speed to multiple OC-192s (9.6 gigabits per second), and dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) equipment, which supports up to 192 channels at 10Gb/s for transporting multiple carrier signals and long reach capability.
The KOTNet program is being implemented in six phases—three phases to implement KOTNet and three phases to enhance the network. The three phases to implement KOTNet started in 2004 and were completed in 2007, while the three enhancement phases started this year and are scheduled to be completed in 2012.
The intent of the DMU program, said Baker, is to provide a redundant microwave transmission backbone in addition to the fiber-optic backbone provided under the KOBR program, with the primary focus on replacing aged AN/FRC-162 radios and AN/FCC-98 multiplexers with modern OC-3 (155 megabits per second) microwave radios and multiplexers.
The digital microwave transmission backbone is meshed with asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switches and SONET node infrastructure across the fiber-optic backbone provided under the KOBR program. The initial focus of the DMU program was replacing the aged and bandwidth-limited AN/FRC-162 microwave radios from the 1990s with state-of-art OC-3 (155 megabits per second) digital microwave radios, with follow-on digital microwave expansion across the Korean peninsula to Kunsan Air Base and Jinhae Navy Base, for a total of 120 digital microwave radios.
The DMU program is being implemented in eight phases. Phases one through four, which upgraded installations from the north to Camp Humphreys, started in 1998 and were completed in 2004. Phases five through eight, to upgrade installations south of Camp Humphreys, started in 2004 and are scheduled to be completed in 2012.
The job of providing communications infrastructure improvements for the Korean peninsula is a never-ending process, said Baker. “When we get to the end, we’ll go back and retrofit,” he said. ♦
