The U.S. Army is deploying commercial equipment, service and bandwidth packages to units across the world as part of efforts to assess a leasing business model for commercial satellite communications services to support force readiness and missions in future combat operations.
The military branch said Thursday it will use soldier feedback and data from the Satellite Communications as a Managed Service pilot — also known as SaaMS — to decide whether to advance the implementation of the leasing model to meet the rising demand for secure satcom services.
“SaaMS strengthens our primary, alternate, contingency, emergency (PACE) communications plan and network resiliency through redundancy,” said Lt. Col. John “Chris” Acosta, deputy commander for the 11th Corps Signal Brigade. “We can access diverse, geographically dispersed network providers. This could ensure communication even if specific regions face disruption.”
The SaaMS pilot includes commercial capabilities in low Earth orbit and geosynchronous Earth orbit, network connectivity to commercial teleports and internet services and the integration of commercial capability into the Global Agile Integrated Transport network design.
Project Manager Tactical Network oversees the SaaMS pilot for service branch and expects to conclude training and deploying the regional pilot units in the spring of 2024.
“[With SaaMS,] we can adjust the scope of technology adoption based on needs and budget, allowing us to test and evaluate new solutions before full-scale deployment,” said Col. James Sullivan, commander of the 11th CSB.
“[Additionally,] we only pay for what we use, eliminating costly unused capacity during low-intensity periods…and we eliminate the need to maintain and manage diverse communication equipment. This frees up resources for other mission-critical needs,” Sullivan added.
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