EUROPE
19 May 05. Siemens, the German technologies group, Nokia, the Finnish mobile telecommunications technology group, and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) are planning to join forces in the bidding for the contract to provide digital wireless communications equipment for Germany’s security forces, to replace the current analogue system. The majority of European police forces already use digital radio technology. (Source: Financial Times Deutschland)
18 May 05. EADS is calling a halt to plans for a new-generation Ariane rocket with a carrying capacity of up to 12 tonnes. EADS Space Transportation, the relevant division of the group, is instead considering the development of an unmanned space shuttle. (Source: Abstracted from Die Welt/FT.com)
USA
18 May 05. The House Armed Services Committee today stuck to the recommendations of one of its subcommittees by approving a cut of $253m from the Defense Department’s $30bn fiscal 2006 IT budget request. The full committee passed the IT portion of the 2006 National Defense Authorization Act; it expects to finish marking up the rest of the bill sometime late tonight. After the legislation is approved, it will go to the House floor for a full vote. The Senate Armed Services Committee passed its version of the bill last week, and the full Senate will vote on the legislation next week. (Source: GCN)
May 05. JTRS costs leap higher. The price tag to develop software waveforms for the Joint Tactical Radio System jumped $339m in the last quarter of 2004, according to a Defense Department report released last month. That means JTRS waveform software has now cost $1.3bn and overall program costs continue to increase. The quarterly Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) released by Michael Wynne, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, said the 34.5 percent increase in costs stemmed primarily from additional waveform development requirements. The report did not provide any additional details, but the Army has acknowledged that developing a networking waveform capable of supporting data rate up to 2 megabits/sec has been a hurdle for JTRS. DOD launched the program in the late 1990s to develop a family of handheld, manpack, vehicle, aircraft and shipboard radios based on architecture that uses software waveforms to communicate on a wide range of frequencies at varying data rates. JTRS has gained a high level of scrutiny as program costs increased and
development of production radios have slipped.
10 May 05. DOD looks to add bandwidth to Defense Network. The Defense Department plans to release a request for proposals later this month in search of technologies that would add bandwidth to the Defense Information
Systems Network. The RFP for the DISN Access Transport Services contract will be released at www.ditco.disa.mil on or near May 25, according to an official with the Defense Information Systems Agency. DISA plans to award a single performance-based, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. Last May, DISA issued a request for information from industry for technologies that would add bandwidth muscle to the DISN, their chief data transport vehicle. DATS will provide upgraded leased-access transmission services between the government-owned backbone network and 600 military locations not covered by the global grid’s 90-plus sites, officials said. The transmission services will be required to support bandwidths up to OC-192, which offers 10-Gbps throughput.
The upgrades would affect two DISN contracts that will expire over the next two
years: the DISN Transmission Services CONUS (for the continental United States) and the DISN Switched/Bandwidth Manager Services CONUS. (Source: GCN)
REST OF THE WORLD
12 May 05. A Forecast International Military Market Report warns that Russia’s steadily declining arms export market, plagued by a poor reputation, is likely to get worse in the years ahead. The recently update