The U.S. Army has initiated an effort to equip National Guard units across all states with a new suite of disaster response equipment.The Disaster Incident Response Emergency Communications Terminal was designed to provide a wide range of first response communications tools that enable access to phone networks, Wi-Fi and 4G Long-Term Evolution, the Army said Monday.
The tool suite was made for both government and non-government use during the occurrences of man-made disasters, natural disasters, civil support missions and other forms of emergency.
DIRECT makes use of satellite-based tactical network transport technologies that enable voice, video and data communications with the Army’s tactical network.
Robert Dobbs, senior network engineer at the Illinois Army National Guard, stated that DIRECT provides a central communications hub that ties different networks and frequencies together.
The Army National Guard’s 406th Signal Company underwent advance training in using DIRECT as part of the tool suite’s pilot users.
