Information gaps: troops in the digital age, disconnected.

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AS SURPRISING AS IT MAY SEEM IN TODAY'S WIRED CULTURE, TROOPS IN COMBAT ZONES DO NOT HAVE EASY ACCESS TO INFORMATION.

That nugget may be hard to comprehend, considering how effortlessly information today can be acquired and disseminated worldwide with inexpensive devices.

The Army, as the other branches of the military, has spent billions of dollars during the past decade building high-tech networks and communications systems, but that wealth of technology does not necessarily flow down to low-level troops.

The problem often is described as a "digital divide" between the technology haves--the upper echelons of command--and the have-nots--the platoons and squads that are deployed in remote areas. These small units for the most part are disconnected from the Army's main tactical networks and only are able to communicate with short-range voice radios.

Army officials for years have talked about the need to bridge this information gap, but turning that rhetoric into action is difficult, given the hierarchical nature of the Army's command structure and the limitations of existing military communications systems.

At the top echelons, commanders can tap into loads of data--maps, satellite images, video feeds and reams of intelligence reports. But in conflicts such as Iraq--where mostly small units make direct contact with the enemy--platoons, squads and even companies often are unable to receive or send important and potentially life-saving messages. Soldiers operating in small units also need better ways to stay connected to each other at all times in cities, where line-of-sight radio signals are blocked by buildings.

Army officials have acknowledged that it will be difficult to achieve their ultimate goal of deploying a "network-centric" force until they can figure out how to provide essential networking services to the lower echelons. But the issue also has sparked contentious debates about how this concept will be applied in the real world, and to what extent the Army is willing to upend the current structure in favor of a "flatter" organizational model.

The digital gap between upper and lower echelons makes it hard for senior commanders in Iraq to get real-time updates of what's happening with units on patrol. Conversely, squads and platoons out on combat missions are cut off from critical data that could help them find enemy insurgents, such as live video from unmanned aircraft.

A networked force is more important to the Army than ever before because it is now fighting an unconventional war where "information is at a premium," said Rickey Smith, director of the Army Training and Doctrine Command's Capabilities Integration Center.

"The toughest thing for us is to share information in real time--streaming video, voice, satellite data links--while soldiers and vehicles are moving," Smith said in an interview.

An ongoing discussion within the Army is how to identify essential needs for information, as opposed to providing data indiscriminately.

"Individual soldiers don't necessarily have to be able to see CNN on their wristwatch," Smith said.

It makes better sense to offer network services that are based on specific needs, he said. "If you are a rifleman in a firefight, you only need your eyeballs. A squad leader needs more information. For sure, every individual needs voice communications and the ability to 'chirp' or transmit his location."

The ability to track soldiers' location is a huge issue because it can save lives when troops are ambushed. If cell phone users in a commercial network can be tracked, "why can't we do that with individual soldiers so when they're pinned down I don't drive past them?" Smith asked.

It also would be helpful to commanders if soldiers entering buildings could send photos from inside.

Some of this networking and tracking technology already exists in an Army experimental soldier ensemble known as land warrior.

As part of a land warrior test in Iraq, squad and fire team leaders were able to keep track of unit members on a monocle screen. Troops also devised digital "chemical lights" to tag specific buildings so they could be easily located by other members of the unit. The land warrior teams are connected by digital low-data rate radios.

But the Army stopped funding land warrior last year, after years of criticism about the system being too cumbersome and expensive. The land warrior concept has its merits, and the Army may continue to fund it in the short term, but it is not what the service ultimately wants for all its units, Smith said.

"What we are finding is that we need a 'land warrior light' ... We need to back off piling on things," Smith said. "But it doesn't mean we are backing away from the goal of sharing information at the soldier level."

To have a truly networked force, the Army will need to provide better capabilities than what is available today, but it will not be a land warrior, Smith said.

"We want every individual soldier to have voice communications and his location provided to the 'common operating picture,'" he said. From that basis, the Army then will need to decide who needs bigger pipes for things like streaming video and satellite images. "The technology exists, the question is how we resource it, and what is the right amount for each level."

The lessons from fighting in Iraq and the realization that mobile networking is harder than everyone thought forced the Army to reassess priorities, Smith said. "We've kind of pulled back a little bit from the idea of sending streaming video to individual soldiers. They don't necessarily need it. But the leaders do."

In the past several years, the Army has poured billions of dollars into modern networking systems that have been deployed to Iraq. These technologies, known as "joint network nodes," are the backbone of the brigades' and some battalions' information hubs. But they are not mobile enough to support smaller units.

Another problem is that the handheld radios that the Army supplies to dismounted troops are single-channel devices for point-to-point voice communications, but have limited capacity to send digital messages. Members of a unit ideally should have radios that are connected in a mesh network--in which all nodes are linked to each other--so they can keep track of one another and are not limited by the line-of-sight, said Kevin Kane, government sales director of Harris RF Communications, a radio supplier to the Defense Department.

Current radios, although an improvement over earlier devices, are not networked, nor do they offer high data rate and voice communications at the same time, Kane said. A dismounted soldier who walks away from his humvee may lose his communications if the line of sight to the vehicle is disrupted. With a networked radio, that soldier could get connected simply by establishing a line of sight with any member of the unit. "That would be our vision," Kane said. "In a tactical situation, with 10 guys on the ground, you can't see everybody. But if you see one, you can get to the rest of the net."

The Defense Department has been pursuing advanced software-based radios under the JTRS (joint tactical radio system) program, but the project has been delayed by bureaucratic turf battles among the services, as well as by funding cutbacks.

A key piece of the JTRS program is the "soldier radio waveform," which is intended to bring more capacity and networking of voice, data, video communications, as well as a higher level of encryption. The SRW also will connect dismounted soldiers to other weapon systems, such as missile launchers, unmanned aircraft and ground robots, said Joe Miller, director of JTRS programs at General Dynamics C4 Systems, which is developing the JTRS handheld radios. ITT Industries is the contractor in charge of the SRW waveform.

With JTRS and other military wireless technologies now becoming available, "the Army has an opportunity to begin putting in the basic infrastructure for transition to a networking world," Kane said.

Along with JTRS, the Army will need other breakthroughs to materialize before it can deploy a tactical network that connects all mobile units.

One piece of the puzzle is the Future Combat Systems--the Army's new family of weapon systems that the service plans to begin deploying in 2015. The FCS will create a flat network that is unencumbered by echelons, said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sorenson, special assistant to the secretary of the Army. Unlike current databases, which are compartmentalized and isolated from each other, FCS will provide a single source of data.

But even if the technology delivers on its promise, the Army will require a different "mindset" if it is going to expand the reach of the network, Sorenson told reporters. "We'll have to change the way we train and operate, and change our doctrine," he said. "It's an ongoing discussion in the Army senior leadership."

The expansion of the network is "not a trivial challenge," said Lt. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes, deputy chief of staff of the Army for programs and resources. "We need a continuous situational-awareness network. The network we have now is short haul."

Like the Army, the Marine Corps also is struggling with how to flatten the organization by stretching the network to small units.