On Dec 19, 11:36�pm, Son of a Sea Cook
<NotaBrews...@thebarattheendoftheuniverse.org> wrote:
> � Boeing and many others are currently working on such systems. �You have
> not even been paying attention to some of the references made in this
> very thread.
Uhh...Boeing, if you have been reading the news, was Public Enemy #1
in all of this. The senate appropriates committees were so angry with
being duped by them over a period of six years, that the military was
forced to send Boeing a "show cause" letter, basically saying, "You
need to give us a reason to continue giving you hundreds of millions
of dollars because what you have 'given' us so far stinks." :
http://mobiledevdesign.com/hardware_news/cluster_contract_cancelled/
Essentially, over a period from 1999-2005, Boeing was milking the cow
while everyone slept. When it came time to show, they had nothing, a
perplexing phenomenon that exist unto this day.
The military also gave a significant portion of the JTRS $37 billion
contract to another prime contractor, which incensed Boeing and
normally would have resulted in a lawsuit by Boeing against the US
Government, but in this case, Boeing was helpless to do anything,
because they had already received the show cause letter, and an
investigation would have exposed the other fraud/waste/and-or/abuse
that they were already engaged in. So they watched helplessly as the
other conctractor took the bacon.
> � Since the idiot that referenced it was more concerned with putting down
> the government, it is not surprising that you may have missed his
> reference since it was framed inside a slew of insults.
I must be the idiot that you are referring to. If your pseudonym is
indicative of what your mother/father does for a living, it would not
be surprising that you think that I am an idiot for critizing the
military.
> � Anyway, it is common knowledge what IS used, AND what WILL be used, as
> well as the wish list for an entire, new constellation of satellites.
Wish lists are nice. There is no less than $1 billion in research
annually being spent annually to find solutions to problems in
computer networking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Internet
That does not mean that the military-industrial complex will produce
the solutions.
Let's face it: JTRS is a real program that has been really with us
since 1999. That's 10 years. They have had plenty of funds from US
Government to produce. There was and is sufficient interest.
Sufficient media attention. All the essential ingredients that would
make a company like Boeing/Honeywell/Thales/etc. highly motivated to
produce..they are present. And here we are, 2009, and the most that
any of these companies have produced can best be described as a
traditional "ManPack" radio, where transceiver is under software
control, something that really has little to do with solving the
problems and does not really solve problem of networking the radios.
Frankly, the people running JTRS need to have a long talk with the
IEEE people who created Wi-Fi. This will clear the air, and force the
JTRS people to realize just how deep in it they are.
> �It is only some of what is online now, and what is coming online and
> what may come online...
>
> _http://jpeojtrs.mil/files/org_info/SBIR_STTR_FINAL_PAGE_FLIP_LAYOUT_s...- Hide quoted text -
About a year ago, I read between 1250 and 1300 pages of documentation
on this program, because I could not believe what I was reading. In a
nutshell, the biggest problem with JTRS is that making software-
defined radio is ~not~ the same as making a computer network of
packets. It took them 6 years and $11 billon to discover this, while
IEEE 802.11 committee members have known for decades and could have
told them in the very first meeting in 1999 while the senators/etc.
where getting all giddy about digitizing old field radios.
Now that they realize their mistake - thinking that, just because
waveform is under software control, everything will magically "talk"
to each other in a glorified computer network - they are too proud to
ask for help. If they were to simply go to IEEE 802.11 meetings, and
say, "Hey guys...we have $5 billion to solve this problem we really
screwed up. Can you help us salvage all the promises of fantastic
radio network that we made...", one of first things that a Wi-Fi
engineer will want to see:
1. The spectral bandwidth that they have available
2. The bit rates they have been promising people
3. Situational parameters (SINAD - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SINAD)
...and immediately conclude that the spectral bandwidth is
horrifically out-of-line with the bit rates promised. [Perhaps this is
the primary reason why JTRS refuses to talk to real experts in doing
this kind of thing - the truth is too frightening]. Oddly, some people
at the Pentagon and elsewhere, who have experienced using convential
PDA's to communicate over Wi-Fi, have been asking a very basic
question - "Why not use Wi-Fi?" This angers some in the JTRS's program
because they view succumbing to Wi-Fi as personal failure. They
generally invoke the argument that Wi-Fi is not secure, which is
ridiculously misleading and irrelevant to the final architecture.
I am not the only one critical of JTRS and other programs. Here is
what the US GAO had to say, after a thorough, multi-month review of
JTRS:
"The JTRS program has encountered a number of problems, resulting in
significant delays and cost increases. The proram is currently
estimated to total about $37 billion.":
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06955.pdf
If you read this document, and skip through the euphemisms, you will
see that it essentially says, "These guys did not think about what
they were doing before they started doing it."
There are other peoeple, who have questioned the vision of JTRS and
its associated program. Just go to Goole and look up "JTRS failure",
and there are numerous criticisms especially from inside the military:
http://tinyurl.com/yknd9pn
I was also told by a high-ranking official at the Pentagon who has
been involved in this since the very beginning that, at present, in
2009, the program should not be taken seriously by small companies
hoping to receive funding, whether they are able to provide capability
or not. The prime contractors, very large corporations, have already
been chosen [the same ones that you see in the "JTRS failure" hits
above], and the outstanding solicitations have been fielded as a
matter of procedure.
Note that there is nothing wrong with the highly-vague vision of JTRS:
anything can communicate with anything else over highly dynamic world-
wide network that especially includes mobile, secured, radios in the
field. There are people the world over who will not disagree that this
is a good idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Internet
The problem is that there is a huge gap between vagueness and
specificity, and for the past 10 years, the prime contractors and
DARPA have earned a D+ on the specifics, IMO
For those of you in sci.electronics.design and comp.dsp, for
amusement, you might want to take a look at JTRS promised bit-rates,
given the width and location of spectrum allocated to the military:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Tactical_Radio_System
-Le Chaud Lapin-