Author Archive
Sam Masud
Digital Government
Black Hawk pilots, mechanics stay informed via online program
Starting this month, the pilots who fly the Army's Black Hawk helicopters and the mechanics who maintain the aircraft can browse Black Hawk data stored on multiple Web servers. At a spring conference of Black Hawk users, Paul Behrens, project officer for the Army's Engineering Data Management Systems, described the response to the Web program as fantastic.
Digital Government
Electronic software distribution is a hit at Defense
Some estimates put ESD sales as high as several billion dollars per year by 2000. Defense Department employees are at the head of the line for installing Microsoft Windows 98 on their desktops, because electronic software distribution (ESD) lets them download it immediately.
Digital Government
Energy lab boosts bandwidth
A Gigabit Ethernet connection links two Cisco 7513 routers to a Cisco Catalyst 5500 LAN switch at the heart of the network, which serves about 50 buildings. Eventually, 10 backbone routers will be upgraded to gigabit/sec rates. The Berkeley, Calif., lab is doing away with shared Ethernet connectivity to desktops PCs in favor of switched LAN links for about 9,500 devices.
Digital Government
DMS demo marks beginning of end for AUTODIN system
For four days last month, the Army's project manager for the Defense Message System demonstrated to dozens of visitors the future of military messaging once the Defense Department phases out the antiquated AUTODIN system. Col. Robert C. Raiford's audience included not only agency DMS managers but also network and systems administrators. The Pentagon's telecommunications center sent 10 representatives.
Digital Government
Enterprising NASA searches for faster hailing
Whenever Capt. James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise told Lt. Uhura to open a channel, he could hold an intergalactic conference over a two-way, real-time video channel. NASA hasn't quite gotten to that point, even for pushing data packets through space. The space agency has been testing a combination of asynchronous transfer mode switching with its Advanced Communications Technology Satellite. In one experiment, NASA wanted to deliver the power of a Cray Research Inc.
Digital Government
Internet, Intranet, bandwidth, storage: The mantra is 'more'
Communications people have a herd mentality. Two years ago, at a NetWorld+Interop in Las Vegas I attended, all the vendors were reciting the ATM mantra. I remember sharing a bus ride from the hotel to the show with an Israeli visitor. I popped him the question everyone was asking: What's the silver-bullet application that will really launch asynchronous transfer mode? He looked at me incredulously. "It's already here," he said. "The Internet."
Digital Government
Treasury, GSA agree on FTS cutover plans
The Treasury Department and General Services Administration last week reached a broad accord on when and how Treasury users will shift to AT&T Corp.'s portion of the governmentwide FTS 2000 network. Sandra Bates, assistant commissioner for service delivery in GSA's Federal Telecommunications Service, said Treasury has agreed to move all its dedicated and consolidated locations using FTS 2000 switched voice services from Sprint Corp.'s Network B to AT&T's Network A by the end of next
Digital Government
Soldiers take their offices to the battlefield
When soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, conducted their largest-ever battlefield exercise over 10 days in February and March, they didn't have to give up any of the office capabilities they're accustomed to back at the garrison. Forty soldiers with minimal training set up more than 60 Microsoft Windows NT servers to handle 500 desktop and laptop clients in the field. The client machines ran standard word processing, e-mail, file transfer, scheduling, presentation graphics and database
Digital Government
Is AT&T's sole-source DCTN song, to a tune of $1.5b saved, valid?
My friends at AT&T Corp. thought I really bollixed it up when I wrote that the Defense Information Systems Agency should go ahead and break up its Defense Information Systems Network (DISN) procurement into about a dozen contracts [GCN, Feb. 5, Page 31]. AT&T folks complained that I got a couple of facts wrong. I said that AT&T estimates a winner-take-all integrated approach would save DISA at least $100 million. No, AT&T said--by permitting vendors
Digital Government
AT&T wins FTS rematch; feds to save $600m
Agencies will pay one-third less for FTS 2000 switched-voice and leased-line services, thanks to the General Services Administration's recent price recompetition in which Sprint Corp. lost a substantial amount of its FTS 2000 business to AT&T Corp. AT&T's lowball prices for switched voice service will drive down the cost of an average one-minute call on the governmentwide long-distance network from about 5 1/2 cents to about 3 1/2 cents. That includes local access and termination
Digital Government
AT&T balks at GSAs plan for govt. telecom
If post-FTS 2000 acquisition strategy isn't overhauled, the governmentwide FTS program should be dumped and agencies turned loose to find services on their own, FTS 2000 contractor AT&T Corp. is telling the government. Unless the General Services Administration fundamentally changes the acquisition strategy, "the PF2K plan is in a failure mode [that]...will also likely take the existing FTS 2000 program down with it," AT&T predicted in a statement prepared for a hearing on the program.
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Digital Government
GSA will cut agency phone bills
Consolidating the responsibility for government telecommunications needs in one office will reduce agencies' local line charges by about $4 a line per month, starting this month. General Services Administrator Roger W. Johnson announced the consolidated role of the new Federal Telecommunications Service (FTS) last month just as Congress agreed to continue mandatory agency use of FTS 2000 services in fiscal 1996. The lawmakers also asked the General Accounting Office for an independent comparison of FTS 2000
Digital Government
Post-FTS 2000 RFP calls for fast services, many contracts
The draft request for proposals released last week for the post-FTS 2000 telecommunications program calls for bleeding-edge wireless and asynchronous transfer mode/Sonet services up 2.4 gigabits/sec. Such speeds now exist only on a handful of agency research networks. The General Services Administration plans to award a minimum of six contracts for services. The plums will be two contracts for comprehensive services similar to those supplied under the current FTS 2000 program by AT&T Corp. and
