IP: Microsoft PowerPoint Death Ray

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> *** 
> Satellite launch marks 
> 'new era for warfighter' 
>
> BY BOB BREWIN (antenna () fcw com) 
>
> The Defense Department entered a new age of communications 
> this week with the successful launch of a wide-bandwidth satellite 
> that can zap a total of 96 megabits per second (megabits/sec) of 
> data to small, deployable terminals that are part of a system 
> modeled after commercial, direct-broadcast TV systems. 
>
> While the system was designed for 
> use by all the services, the Navy 
> views the new satellite, with its 
> Global Broadcast Service (GBS) 
> transponder package, as essential 
> to its Information for the 21st 
> century project. IT-21 is the 
> Navy's program to tie together all 
> its sea- and land-based tactical and 
> administrative computer systems. 
>
> Hughes Space and 
> Communications Co. launched the 
> GBS satellite, called the Navy Ultra High Frequency Follow 8 
> (UHF F/O 8), from Cape Canaveral, Fla. Lt. Gen. David Kelley, 
> director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, said the 
> launch marks the start of "a whole new era of bandwidth for the 
> warfighter." 
>
> Because the GBS package only works one way, DOD plans to 
> use the new satellite to transmit wideband data such as large 
> Microsoft Corp. PowerPoint slides, graphics, reconnaissance 
> photos and live video from a central point to dispersed users. 
> Users will use lower-band circuits to request data from central 
> GBS distribution points, in a system Adm. Archie Clemins 
> described as an asynchronous communications system. 
>
> Clemins, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and the 
> principal backer of the Navy's IT-21 project, plans to use the 
> GBS package on UHF F/O 8 to deliver high-bandwidth data to 
> relatively small terminals on ships at sea. The Navy has developed 
> its IT-21 architecture around the launch schedule of the 
> three-satellite GBS constellation. 
>
> [snip]