Digital Government

Atlantic Fleet prepares ship-to-shore network

NORFOLK Va. The Navy's Atlantic Fleet (LANTFLT) which is headquartered here has embraced the Pacific Fleet's Information Technology for the 21st Century project which will provide a seamless shiptoshore computing system. LANTFLT has developed a coordinated plan to use IT21 to upgrade its entir

Digital Government

Ships' old computers show need for Navy IT overhaul

NORFOLK VA tour of two Navy ships docked here at the Norfolk Naval Station demonstrates just why the Navy is pursuing its Information Technology for the 21st Century (IT21) program a massive undertaking that will use commercial technology to create a seamless shiptoshore computing environment.

Digital Government

Hughes opens DT V to credit card buys

Federal users planning to buy computers from the Hughes Data Systems Inc. Air Force Desktop V contract can now complete their purchases the way many consumers do: use plastic in this case the government's International Merchant Purchase Authorization Card (IMPAC). The Air Force also has made it e

Digital Government

AT&T exec to retire; possible reorg looms

AT&T Government Markets president Richard Lombardi plans to retire Nov. 1. He told FCW that the decision was made 'over a month ago" well before his division agreed to pay the Defense Department some $66 million to offset costs associated with a year's delay in fielding a new longhaul wideband

Digital Government

Intercepts

DISN defectors? My CONUSwide antenna network has started to pick up strong signals that DISA director Lt. Gen. David Kelley and the gang over at Courthouse Road face wholesale defections by the services the Defense agencies and the unified commands as a result of the oneyear DISN network delay th

Digital Government

Intercepts

JMCOMS star. Kenneth Slaght program manager for the Navy's Joint Maritime Communications System made the rear admiral (lower half) promotion list adding clout to the project designed to serve as the afloat pipeline for the Navy's IT21 project. Lillian Fishburne commanding officer of NCTAMS EASTPAC

Digital Government

WAAS cost overruns threaten program

The Federal Aviation Administration may pay almost $1 billion to develop its major satellitebased navigation program some $350 million more than it anticipated when it launched the program three years ago according to a new report by the General Accounting Office. In late 1994 the FAA estimated it

Digital Government

DOD, DOT support GPS signal

Civilian users of the 24 satellitebased highly accurate Global Positioning System won a guarantee of improved accuracy in the future in a joint planning document backed by the Defense and Transportation departments. The document the biannual 'Federal Radionavigation Plan' (FRP) calls for the addit

Digital Government

TRW launches electronic ordering on ULANA II

TRW Inc. had to wait two and a half years to finally turn on its Air Force $678 million networking infrastructure contract last month and concedes it has lost some advantage to its competitor Electronic Data Systems Corp. But the firm also believes it has a technology edge over EDS on the Unified L

Digital Government

Searchable Web site offers acquisition rules and regs

A searchable World Wide Web site that allows acquisition specialists access to the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) as well as acquisition rules and regulations from specific Defense Department commands has recorded over 10 million hits since going online in May 1996. Farsite (farsite.hill.af.

Digital Government

DISN late; DISA, AT&T cut deal

The Defense Information Systems Agency confirmed last week that AT&T was unable to meet its schedule for installation of the Defense Information Systems Network (DISN) Transmission ServicesContinental United States (DTSC) a longhaul wideband communications network designed to satisfy the bandwi

Digital Government

Navy delivers top-notch Guam coverage; new TRAC site tracks FBI business

The Navy demonstrated the breadth of the World Wide Web and its ability to compress time and distance with the service's online coverage of the Korean Air Lines Flight 801 crash on Guam earlier this month. Thanks to the Web the Navy put Guam thousands of miles in distance and a day away in time

Digital Government

Titan's ICE may solve compression problems

A picture often equals or betters hundreds if not thousands of words but not if you try to stuff a large photo file down a thin communications pipe. Military communicators have tried to solve this problem with compression schemes that shrunk the picture but also reduced the sharpness needed when tr

Digital Government

DOD uses low tech to find MIAs

The Pentagon owns and operates the most advanced computer and communications equipment available but during this month's mission to recover remains of American soldiers missing in action in the Korean War the Defense Department had to opt for decidedly lowtechnology tools. Typically when the DOD P

Digital Government

Institute calls for privatizing GPS

A conservative think tank last month released a report calling for the Air Force to sell its satellite communications system which provides troop locations and guides weapons to pinpoint accuracy to a private company. The Reason Public Policy Institute a Los Angeles public policy research group tha

Digital Government

Intercepts

New Orleans pork update. It's our favorite time of the year here at Intercept central appropriations bill season when we have the opportunity to check out what kind of technopork Rep. Bob Livingston (RLa.) put into the DOD spending bill for his district a budding Silicon PlainontheMississi

Digital Government

CIA tales spun on Web

Love a good spy yarn? Then tap into the Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) site (www.odci.gov/csi) on the World Wide Web where true CIA tales match or rise above fiction. CSI the academic arm of the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence conducts research into CIA operations and pub

Digital Government

Joint Chiefs revisit DMS; COTS likely

The Pentagon Joint Staff has launched a sweeping study of the Defense Message System FCW has learned including a reevaluation of requirements set almost a decade ago and the technology solutions offered by DMS contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.

Digital Government

Langston conducts IT-21 ensemble

Marv Langston the Navy's chief information officer likes his jazz smooth and mellow not loud or brassy.

Digital Government

Pentagon searches for COTS tech

Gesturing to the PCs and workstations crammed into the already tight spaces in the control room of the attack submarine USS Atlanta Fire Control Technician 1 Richard Parks summed up the essence of Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID) '97.