WASHINGTON DC (WiMAX Day). Although the US military has been using and testing WiMAX for several years, recent announcements indicate that a more formal engagement with the world’s most gluttonous consumer of technology may be forthcoming.

Nokia announced yesterday that it has entered into a development agreement with the US Army to evaluate the use of GSM, 3G and WiMAX. According to a press release from Nokia, the “project consists of a series of tests, demonstrations, experiments and exploratory exchange efforts that will begin in the fourth quarter of 2006 and last for five years.”

Last month, a report in the Korea Times linked Samsung in a potential $3 billion contract with the US military for WiMAX mobile devises. The report quoted a Samsung official saying “The US army selected WiBro as one of the candidates for the next-generation strategic mobile communication method,” although an official Samsung spokesman did not corroborate the statement.

From Jersey to Basra
American armed forces have been using a makeshift WiMAX network in Iraq for the last two years to enable broadband communication amongst their troops. The network proved to be such a success that a commercial WiMAX network is now in development. According to the US State Department, a license for 2.5 GHz spectrum was awarded to the Iraq Economic Development Group (IEDG) in July 2006 and IEDG intend to invest $30 million to launch the first WiMAX network in Basra.

Closer to home, the US military has been testing WiMAX to support training and war simulation at Fort Dix in New Jersey. The network was deployed by Telos Corporation and used spectrum leased from AT&T. According to Tom Badders, wireless networking director for Telos, “Fort Dix is a very large training and test facility. They want to use WiMAX to extend a base network from a headquarters building to bring network connectivity.”

Since testing began at Fort Dix in 2005, the US Army and US Air Force are now replacing their Wi-Fi networks with WiMAX at 35 locations in America.

WiMAX is also being tested by the US Department of Defence (DoD) in conjunction with combat and tactical programs. These programs will utilise wireless networks that link soldiers to a wide range of weapons, sensors and information systems, that can enable joint interoperability, shared situational awareness and highly synchronised mission operations.

The big picture
For several years the DoD has been hard at work trying to implement a wireless communications system known as the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) that integrates all devises in spectrum from 2 to 2000 MHz. This is an ambitious $7 billion project that a DoD spokesman describes will “create seamless interoperability and linkage among air, land and sea networks.” According to a DoD briefing, the objective of JTRS is to “keep the warfighter in communication – anytime, anywhere, with anyone.”

Since its inception, JTRS has been under development at Boeing Corporation. However even Boeing now concede that commercially available and low-cost WiMAX may prove to be an immediate solution to the wireless needs of the military, as well as supporting peace keeping, disaster recovery, and homeland security.

It was not until last year that WiMAX became a viable long-term solution for the DoD. As WiMAX standards have been implemented, and as vendors such as Nortel and Alcatel Government Solutions rally their cause, WiMAX now has an ear in Washington. However, the key lesson that has been learned recently, according to a DoD spokesman, is that as WiMAX networks grow around the world, they can provide US military with instant global access.

This topic was the subject of considerable discussion in September at the IEEE Secon conference where many specialists, from both the public and private sector, argued that WiMAX now more than ever provides the foundation for the future ad hoc Mobile Area Network (MANET) mesh networks long sought after by DoD technologists.

As WiMAX has come of age, so too has US government thinking about public and private networks. Preston Marshall, the program manager at the Advanced Technology Office of the Department of Defence Research Projects Agency (DARPA), recently noted that “Military networks are going to converge as closely as we can to civil technologies.”